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AR’ 1 ’'CLES OF lasting INTEREST • 32nd YEAR OF P^mrCATlON 

The Kremlin Max Easih in 


So Long, Voyageur ! Katur ’ A * agazine 


i 

5 

c 

12 

IS 

19 


To lum Us from Madness • . New York Ms^cvsine 

The Shirt Off His Back Drama m :ai Life 

A Rare Bit of Smoking and Dancing E>ide 

How Your Pocket May be Pic :ed Parade 

luj in This Wide World 22 

The Best Advice I Ever Had Ychwn MerthhH 25 

'rhe Shah J ->ins the Revolution . . . Max W. Thornburg 2> 

Don^t Be Afr.uJ ol '"Don’t” • .National Parent-Teacher 33 

rd Pick More Daisies Don Harold 37 

In My Darkest Hour— Hope True Experience 41 

The New Non-Fattening Sweet . . , * .Dean Jennings 44 

They Solve Problems Never Tackled Before 

Chiistiun Science dMcntwr 4 "" 
Your Body’s Wizardry with Food . . . * . .Poitillj kt 

My Heart Lies South . • , .... From tic Book 55 

Mystery Man of tlie A-Bomb , . . . . John Gunther 63 

The Story of the Kamikaze Suicide Missions 

LLS, Naval Imtitute Proceedings f 6 
My Book-Hunting Adventures in Paris • Cornelia 0 ns Skinner 70 

How to Relax ^'Rclax and Live * 75 

The Great Baby Boom Time 79 

The World’s First Great Novelist . Donald Cvlros^ Pcattie 80 
My Most Unforgettable Chaiactei . Kavari mgh MaJJonold 85 
What I Learned at Gordon Cosby’s Church Chriman Herald 92 

Weasels in the Corn Meal Atlantic Monthly 90 

Middle Age Meets the Maiterhom h )Sday xoi 

^ . I 0Soo/it Occiion 

. . . Ralph Moody i«>7 







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/OLUME 64 Readei^ Digest 

An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent booltlet form 


The Kremlin— 

Grim Symbol, Beautiful Fortress 

By Max Eastman 


T hf Krfmlin, synonym for the 
power that rules the Com- 
munist world, IS moic than just a 
symbol This gigantic, Gibraltar- 
like, scaled and guarded fortress in 
the middle of a peaceful city, its 
w^lls y to 20 .feet thick, 30 to 70 
feet high, its history one of in- 
trigues, conspiracies, thefts of em- 
pire, strangulations and blood-let 
tings, IS Itself an instrument of 
secret and despotic rule From each 
ot Its 19 watch tosyers, if you look 
carefully, you will see the blue nose 
of a machine gun pointing out over 
Moscow And it you loiter within 
100 feet of Us base a guard with 
rifle in hand will step out — as if 
from the verv walls — and tell you 
in words \ou don’t answer to “get 
going “ 

Yet the Kremlin is beautiful be 
vond any other ‘executive mui 
Sion” in the world There are four 
great cathedrals and a dozen or so 
churches and chapels, or the relics 


‘Nobody outride \nowi, what 
going on behind tho<e grim and 
toweling walls’ ' 

ot them, within its 43 acies, and 
their green roots and high, golden- 
domed towers lifting jewelled 
crosses to the skv make this citadel 
look, when seeii against the dawn, 
more like a celestial paradise than 
.1 seat of earthU pow'er 

In Lenin’s da\ the Kremlin w^as 
hrmly loLked and guarded at each 
gate b' a loiiple of Red sentries But 
when Stalin settled in, and muidtr 
became the basis of Parts control, 
the locks were reinforced, the 
guaids were multiplied Burglar 
alarms were added, and red lights 
that dashed on when the gates 
opened and kept going until thev 
closed The doors ot the pedestrian 
entrance were provided with several 
grilles, each responding to a differ 
ent ke\ And a system ot passes 




I HI Kb IDbR S DUASl 


searches and examinations was set 
up between the {)Lnn citizen and 
the inside ot that citadel which 
makes it a rnastei piece of the art of 
keeping the public power private 
Newspaper men call the Kremlin 
“the hardest place in llu world to 
get into “ Even those who get in 
arc watched over and nudged along 
b\ armed guards and clctcctncs 
until they harclU dare look round 
Nobodv outside can lind <»ut 
what IS going on behind those 
towering walls Ask a sim[dc epics 
ti in \\hcrt was Stalin's apart 
ment" There arc three diflerent 
guesses but no ora knows 1 he 
onl\ Westerner w'ho ever s<iw it is 
Sir Winston Churchill, and he can i 
recall Us location 
Or ask a big ejuestic.n W ho de 
cided to arrest lieria, the hcau ol 
the State Pcdicc' W as there a meet 
ing of the Praesidium or did M ilen 
ko\ order it personalb " Answers to 
such natural cjuestions are ineon 
Lcivable When the gongs hegin to 
ring rnadU and the red lights to 
wink, and the gre\ hoelicd ckiws tl\ 
up like a tattered cano()\, and the 
great gates suddenK hurst ojn n, and 
seven lime usines packed wilh scerel 
[lohee tear out at ^o miles ,m hour 
into 1 closed of! avenue with .in 
armed guard cverv ^oo feet is it 
Malenkov leaving fui his couiUrv 
estate^ Is It M(;lotov ' Is It Kagano 
Mch" Is he rushing for a dcKtor, es 
eapmg jrovi a doeto. , [iraelising lor 
a motor nice or just going home to 
bed' And which car is ht m' No 


iunuary 

boelv know^s Nobodv can lind out 

The executive offices of the 
S<j\iet Ctov eminent are not in the 
Kremlin — thev are not important 
enough tor that The I'oieign Office, 
the Depaitnieni ot C'ommerec, the 
War Olliee, c\en the MVD — all 
these toirn.ilK su|)reme institutions 
aic sealtcied throughout the citv It 
is onlv the .ihsoliile rule is, the lop 
leadeis ot the Communist Partv , 
who inhabit this beaulitul and ter 
nble lorlress 

In the I2tb ceniuiv the Kieinlm 
Vwis the whole town ot \Iosu)W, 
siiiioundcd In a stockade to tend 
<jri the raids ot the l.utats '] wo 
• ciuurics lalci the picscni magnih 
cent lockhcutcd walls, taccvl with 
rose buck wen laboi loiisK ctc etc d 
llu job took main aiclmeets uul 
numberless tbous.uuls ot mujiks 
years Meanwhile, another ulv ol 
Mos.ovs was growing nj^ outside 
the walls \alur ill) the dcs[>ot‘- 
who ruled Russia lemained within 
the walled hub, protected now not 
against 1 „rlar r.nds but against 
the 11 ow n subje els and r n ils 

1 le re Ivan the I eirible, the best 
vdiie.ited man ot Ins age nid one ot 
rh' era/iest adopted the title oi 
( /ai’ ((aesar), selected a wite 
tioni 1 lierel ot virgins diuen in 
tiejin ail ovei Russi i, b.islud Ins 
son s skull III with the gold s^eptie 
e I stale h.id the head ot the e huieh 
str. ingle cl anel set an example eit rule 
hv rn.issaert that few despots m his 
leav have exceeded In the Red 
Sejuaie troniing the Kremlin on the 




north-cast thc\ show \(ju tht stone the other is a rncinon il to rh( 
excLiilion block where han eui jloru s of Ru‘^sia\ p ist 
clown some of his more elistuig 1 he ^'ommunist half iiuluiies a 
uishcd Mctims Al)o\c it stands the i;rou[) of mud \c1Ka\ administration 

Cduirch ot Vassih the Blessed, builehn^s erected after the rcstjlu 

tamed foi its main uiloureel onion tion, the old C'ourt of justice where 

towers, rarest of architectural won I.cnin had his olHcc barracks foi 

ders (When it was done Isan had the Kiemlin guards two cinemas, 
the ewes of its architect gouged out an uneletgrounehbomb | roof shelter 
so that he could ntsei build another for the Dictator (it resembles a bank 
like It ) \aulr, with an iron door i8 inches 

I lien m 170^ Peter the (ircat thick), and a “Kitchen of the 

mo..d the capital to his new-built Council of People’s Commissars 

cit\ of vSt Petersburg — “a w^indow' Phis latter institution seems to be 

open to the W'est,” he calle'd it— ccntralK located fe)r Cicneral ]e:)hn 

<indth( kremlin lost miuh of Its im Ikane, the sensitise head of the 

portaiue -until k^i (S w he n tiu Pol US militars mission during W^orld 

she viks, having closed that w indow War II, found the omnipresent 

to the West, moved hack to Mos smell of cooking cabbage even in 

COW' Whth a partv of onlv 2oo,(kx) Stalin’s office 

the\ w'ere ruling a (oiinirv of 150 The other half of the Kremlin 
millu)n, and a fortihed 4^ acres consists mainlv ot churches and 

within the capital eitv was procisedv ()alacc n, hut includes also the Roval 

what thev lurdcd Armoiirv, which lias been converted 

1 oda\ half ol the Kremlin is into a museum It is a fabulous 

occupied 1 )\ C'ommiinist Partv tre.isurc hous^ of lu irlooni:* ot both 

executives and their entouiages, vhuuh and st.ile, the greatest his 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


toncal museum in Russia — un- 
visited, alas, bv the Russian people. 
Here are the thrones of the czars 
the ivory throne of Ivan the Terri- 
ble, and Boris Godunov’s throne of 
thin gold plate studded with 2,000 
precious stones. Carefully preserved 
also (and unvisited) arc the Cathe- 
dral of the Annunciation, where the 
czars were christened and wed, the 
Archangel Cathedral, where many 
of them he buried; and the Cathe- 
dral of the Assumption, where 
from the i6th century they were 
crowned 

The All-Union Soviet (the Com- 
munist parliament) meets — when 
It meets — in the Great Palace 
Built bv Nicholas I in the 1830s, it 
IS a vast rectangular building of 
white stone, surrounding a court 
with a cathedral in it Here the late 
czar’s Ining-rooms are preserved 
meticulously, every ash tray, every 
pen and pencil, even the towels and 
blotting paper, just as he left them 
Here also, in the Hall of St Cather- 
ine, with Its regal ceiling supported 
bv two pillars of solid malachite, is 
preserved the full tradition of the 
patriotic state banquets These are 
made sumptuous with all the gor- 
geous old table service, the innum- 
erable rich foodstuffs the Crimean 
wines and the vodka 


The All-Union Soviet chamber is 
the vast Throne Room of St An- 
drew Appropriately enough, the 
decrees and resolutions prepared by 
the Party leaders are read to the 
delegates, some 1,200 of them, from 
a rostrum placed where the czars 
throne used to stand. The delegates 
sit in rows of fixed seats, each pro- 
vided with a little desk as in a school- 
room. Like well-behaved pupils 
they absorb with reverent attention 
every word that is said or read to 
them No one wriggles in his seat 
They have been conducted from 
the gate to this chamber by guards 
who did not permit them to strav 
from the direct path. And their de 
liberations, or whatever is ^mg on 
in their heads, arc conduct^ under 
the eves of other guards stationed 
at six-foot intervals along the walls 
Additional guards are posted at each 
door, and at the end of each aisle 
stands an officer of the State Police 
When the reading or speaking is fin- 
ished they applaud witli energetic 
enthusiasm, and when the vote is 
taken they vote unanimously In a 
len-vear history of this superdemo- 
cratic parliament there is no record 
of one dissenting voice. 

Thar gives us an idea what things 
will be like if the Kremlin succeeds 
in Its ambition to rule the world. 


/v^EsuLTs'’ exclaimed Edison to an assistant marvelling at the bewil- 
dering total of his failures — 50,000 experiments, for example, before he 
succeeded with a new storage batterj^ “Results? Why, man, I have 
gotten a lot of results I know several tnousand things that won’t work ” 




SoCoHg, Voyageurl 


By Gerald Movius 

HEN the spring flights of Canada geese 
‘ steered north above our place, my wild 
1 gander, Voyageur, was reminded of 
far-away places I hoped he had forgotten. 
For Vovageur couldn’t fly, and it hurt me to 
see him try. 

I had found him, keel up, in the weeds 
along the banks of a gull\ the previous 
autumn. He was badly wounded, but a 
month’s rest in our woodshed and a diet of 
chicken mash put him on his feet again, 
though one wing dragged and he vvalked lop- 
sided. 

He would scramble to the top of the straw 
pile when the honkers passed, his good wing 
flailing his side, vearning for his km to notice 
him Usually their clarion voices had smoth- 
ered his calls. But once the flight veered and 
detached a small task forLC for a closer look 
As they wavered downwards, all they could 
see was Voyageur and a small boy in stocking 
cap and wind-breaker who wished that some- 
how the great grey birds could help their 
earth-bound fellow. 

Then they were gone, for there was nothing 
they could do And Vovageur was hushed. 
His head drooped, his wing l^at slow'cr and 
slower as he watched the dark skein fade into 

Condtnstd fiom \ature Magazxnt ^ 


nn /v7 IDIRS DU.Lsl 


/iinnur\ 


the hibnc of the n^sc jncl-gulden 
dciwn After that he paid no more 
attention to the wild geese than did 
our chickens It was as though he 
had decided to make the best of 
things 

The [looks sa\ that C'anada honk- 
ers aie haiightv and aloot Wnageur 
was as sociable as a toihe pup and 
as talkatnt as an okl parrot He 
was under ni\ feet at ehi»re tune, 
stropping fils nc».k as^ainst nn o\er 
lbs and, in sudden bursts ot adce- 
.lOn, shoMiig hiN lull into m\ hand 
anel pretending to hue 

\’o\ageiir liked evervboeh, espe- 
eialK such infants as then adorned 
the place The b.ibv shieks used his 
haek tor a sun poreh or as an ob- 
staele in their games ol lollow ni\- 
Icadcr T urkc\ poults whose laitlc- 
headed mothers lett them straggling 
in a sudden ram eoulel deptnd on 
Vo\ageur tor emergeiKs shelter 
When \hnegar and Miistarei were 
absent on important social matters, 
Vovageur h.ib\ sat with their kit- 
tens, and he mourned the ae».idental 
deith ot Mustard’s kitten more than 
Mustard did 1 tuimd him with his 
long neek strciehed prrUfetmgK 
across the limp little c.. reass m.ikmg 
sorrowful noises deep in his throat 

The honker is monoiramfjus and 
mighty fuss\ in his elioiee (jt a 
bride, but w'c hoped Vo\agcur 
would mate with one of our domes 
tie geese^ The ofTsprmg of a honkei 
anel a liariuaid goose are the iinest 
eating this side ot OKmpian ban 
ejLiet hails, and in those davs the 


railwavs snapped them up at fancy 
prices 

If Vovageur would co-operate, I 
figured, m\ fortune was made Our 
\irgin geese W'crc willing In his 
lean and elegant presenee our lum- 
bering Toulouse gandtis looked 
like stodiiv lout whereas Vovag- 
ciir WMs .1 s\niphon\ m blaek, iircv 
and W'hite giving the impression ot 
a \oung clubmin turned out tor a 
lull eliess weeleling 

TTilip's alleLtions wxie his for the 
askiiu: 1 ipt(ie tr iiled altei him w ilh 
a languishing an I ere si llultered 
e\er\ tealhei if lu so mueh a^ 
brushed I'^ainsi he i \o\tigeur ig 
nored their blanelislimeiits 

He .ip[Kared loliue resoK^d on 
a lite ol monastK meelit ition when 
he cistoimdid e\ei\l)oel\ bv bring 
ing home a biide ot lus own selee- 
tion, a little g()e»se from the Hatlu 
wav place a milt* U[) the load Slie 
was sin about the proposnicm, but 
be iHged her ahead ot liim with Ins 
bill gabl)lmg reassuiances 

\T)\ageur must ha\e ele)nL Ins 
eourtmg m the gull\ where all the 
watt I fowl in the ne ighboiirliexx! 
ia\(jrled, and lie had elio^r^n well 
lire biide was svelte and demure, 
anel hei troek of light giev and 
white teallurs pul vow in mind of 
an eighlee nth eeiilurv lass T'he 
Hathavva\s demanded and not five 
sellings ot ehicken eggs m exehangc 
lor the ir bird, which I named Frn 
eilla 

She chose an old barrel for a 
home, and I furnished the nest with 



^954 


SO LONG, VOYAGLURf 


a glass goose s egg to keep them 
happy while I snitched her eggs as 
fast as she laid them, setting them 
under accommodating hroodv hens. 
The last ten eggs I let Priscilla keep 
for herself While they were incu- 
bating no stranger could get within 
yards of the barrel without inviting 
Vovagcur's wrath He was barelv 
ci\il even to me 

It was then he discovered that his 
wing had healed He had gone 
down to the giillv for a hastv dip 
and must have thought he heard 
Priscilla call him He f^eti back, 
hurtling into the vard as easiK as if 
his wing had never been damaged 

He landed with a bump, shook 
his head in surprise at his owm 
achievement, examined the wung as 
il he had never seen it before and 
burst into an eesiasv of gabhlcs I Iis 
splendid eves glinted with exeite- 
ment He danced on his toes with 
both wings alott, raced to Priseilla 
and chucked her under the chin 
w'lth his bill, then came running to 
me, pulling at mv overalls 

From that time on he flew all over 
the neighbourhood 'Fhis could por- 
tend on 1\ one thing Vo\ age ur would 
leave m the autumn Sure, 1 could 
clip his wings Hut he was too happv 
Vov age ur with a crippled wing had 
needed me W ith two good wnngs he 
needed nothing except his freedom 
1 hated to see the su Timer end 

Vewageur and I were in the \ard 
together when I he.ird the pipes of 
the first southward flight He ejuar- 
' tered the sky to mark the course. 


7 

His bexly trembled. He took a run- 
ning start and launched himself up- 
wards I said to myself “So long, 
Voyageur* So long*” 

Priscilla took it with serenity at 
first In their months together he 
had flown ofif for hours at a time 
But now when night came she was 
uneasv In two davs she was a sick 
bird W e had had geese before who 
went into declines when something 
happened to their mates Priscilla 
was alone in hei anxietv, for she had 
formed no social attachments with 
our Toulouse geese and her goslings 
no longer needed her She moped 
and rejected food 

But both Priscilla and I had 
underestimated Vovageur Within 
three da\ s he wms back, the w'lldncss 
gone trom his eves d he instinct ot 
devotion was stronger than the 
migratorv urge He was completelv 
himsclt once more, getting m m\ 
wav at chore 'time and showering 
attentions on Priscilla, who bloomed 
into health again 

It was ihe season of fun for oui 
vvateriuvvl The cares of familv life 
were ovei lor the vear The Indian 
summer sun warmed the water, and 
there were voting geese and ducks 
lor the oldsters to whack over the 
head when ihev got tcMi saiicv 
It was also the hunting season, 
and I could hear the shotguns in 
the carlv morning lioiirs Now and 
then a goose would falter and spiral 
to the ground It must have been in 
that way that Voyageur had first 
landed rear our place. 



THE READER’S DIGEST 


I was glad Voyageur stuck to the 
safety of the gully, which was posted 
as out of bounds to hunters. That 
was why I could hardly believe it 
when I heard the slam of a gun 
close to our place, and the scream 
of terrified geese There was a cold, 
sick feehng in my stomach as I ran 
to look. On the opposite side of the 
gully a man was running away; 
you could tell by his clothes he was 
a city dude. 

Priscilla was dead Vo)ageur was 
unhurt, though the hunter must 
have been aiming at him. 

Voyageur was crouched in the 
grass beside Priscilla Her feathers 
were soaked with blood His long 
neck rested across her He was silent 
and his eyes were gla/cd in misery 


I buried her in decency and 
honour, while Voyageur watched 
As I tamped the last shovelful of 
dirt on the small grave he ran to 
me and thrust his bill into my hand, 
w'himpenng like a grieving dog 
Overhead the honkers piped, and 
Vovageur looked up I knew he was 
saving good bve 
“So long, Vo\jgeur*“ I said 
This time It would be for e\ci 
There was no Priscilla to lure him 
back There were onlv the skv and 
the muted voices of his own breed, 
and the northern wind that nipped 
at their sterns, urging them (jn to 
the southern resting grounds 
And then he was gone to join the 
distant flight 
So long, Voyageur^ 


Pardon, Your Slip Is Showing 

From the announcement of a banejuet sponsorcti by the Oregon State 
Bar Association “Informal — Wives Expected- Ciuests Welcome” 

On the cover of My Baby Magazine “Have a baby^ Read how to gft 

FATHER to HELP ” 

From the Blackfoot, Idaho, Bulletin “We could go on indefinitely 
about the graces of hundreds of charming matrons in this town, all 
growing lovicT with time “ 

From an ad in the Detroit Neu/s “Here is the woild’s tendcrest fresh 
beef ^ It’s cut to give you more meat-less bone “ 

From the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin “The union is seeking a ten 
per cent wage increase plus improved benefits and double lime for any 
day in which the workers work.” 

From the account of a six-year-old’s birthday parly in the Santa 
Monica, California, Evening Outlook^ “Other celebrats were Candy 
Parsons, 6, and Sandra Martyn, 5.” 



A world-famous philosopher 
proposes a practical plan to avert war 


To Turn Us from Madj^ess 


By Bertrand Russell 


P eople everywhere are 
I deeply troubled by what 
seems like a fated and pre- 
determined march towards ever 
greater disaster. Many have come to 
feel that nothing can be done to 
avert the plunge towards ruin 
Thev sec mankind driven on by 
angry gods, no longer master of its 
fate 

I think this view is lazy and super- 
stitious. The misfortunes of the 
human race since 1914, and those 
much greater misfortunes with 
which It is now threatened, have 
been brought on not by fate but bv 
human volition, by the passions of 
the many and the decisions of the 
few. 

But if passions and decisions can 
do great harm, they can also do 
great good It is therefore irrational 


Bertrand Russell, distinguished mathc 
matician and philosopher, has written more 
than a score of books, including An Inquiry 
Into the Meaning of Truth, Human Know 
ledge, Which Way to Pejce'> and The ABC 
of Atoms In 1950 he received the Nobel 
Prize for literature The citation named him 
'one of our time’s most brilliant spokes- 
men of rationality and humanity " 


\ 


Russia and the United States may 
be likened to two scorpions in a bot- 
tle, each capable of killing the other, 
but only at the risk of his own life 
The basic fact is that the time in 
which this may happen is short We 
shall need all the help and wisdom 
and resourcefulness we can muster 
The atomic clock ticks faster and 
faster —Dr J Robert Oppcnhcimer 
in Foreign Affairs 


to let our hopes be smothered by a 
sense of impotence. 

In the world today there arc two 
immensely strong forces One is 
the hostility between Communists 
and non-Communists, the other 
IS the wish to avoid another world 
war. These forces work in opposite 
directions, and have kept each 
other in uneas\ balance in recent 
years 

In this situation it is easy to imag- 
ine a small, apparently trivial event 
that might unleash war It is not so 
easy to imagine an event that would 
give added strength to the desire for 
peace. Yet I think such an event is 
possible 

How can it be brought about ^ 
Some people pin their hopes to a 


Condensed from The New York Times Magaexne 



THE RE4DER^S DIGEST 


Soviet change of heart, but I do not 
see the rulers of Russia adopting the 
principles of the Sermon on the 
Mount in any near future There is 
not much hope in argument de- 
signed to convince the other side of 
the righteousness of our own How- 
ever convincing such argument may 
appear on one side of the Iron Cur- 
tain, It loses persuasiveness in pass- 
ing to the other side Nor is one- 
sided appeasement a road to peace, 
since It only encourages the other 
side to continually more outrag- 
eous demands until at last a point 
IS reached where resistance is im- 
perative. 

If the danger of war is to be less- 
ened It must be by emphasis upon 
something about which both sides 
arc agreed I know of only one thing 
about which there might be general 
agreement on both sides — and that 
is that a great war would be as 
disastrous to the victors as to the 
vanquished. 

If I were an influential statesman 
I should advocate a conferehce of all 
the great powers to consider this 
one thing the destruction to be ex- 
pected in a new world war No one 
at the conference would be allowed 
to suggest that one side W'as better 
than the other, or more likely to 
achieve victory. The sole business of 
the conference would be to draw 
up a statement of the sufferings 
to be expcLied among all the bel- 
ligerents. 

The hydrogen bomb must be con- 
sidered not as an engine of victory 


lanuary 

but solely as an engine of destruc- 
tion. No good can come of the 
wrangles in which both sides at 
present indulge. “We have the hy- 
drogen bomb,” says one side “So 
have we,” savs the other “But we 

j 

have more,” says the one “But \ou 
present more convenient targets,” 
says the other There is grave danger 
that sooner or later the wrangling 
will exasperate people to the point 
where they will say “Let us be 
done with bragging and put the H- 
bomb to the test* ” 

An\ such procedure is suicidal 
What I suggest is a conference in 
which weapons of war are con 
sidered strictly as leading to utter 
defeat on both sides This is the onl\ 
matter in which the interests of the 
two sides arc identical, and it is 
therefore the only matter which can 
be considered b\ a conference with- 
out making the hostile feeling on 
both sides more violent 
Such a conference might generate 
on each side a belief that, since the 
other is aware of the inevitable evils 
of a world war, it is not hkelv to 
indulge in war unless comfKllcd to 
If once this belief existed on both 
sides, a general relaxation of tension 
would become much easier 
At present we of the West are 
persuaded that we shall never en 
gage in a great war except in resist 
ance to an attack; but we arc not 
persuaded that such an attack is un- 
likely. I think that the same attitude 
probably exists in the Soviet Clov- 
ernment 



TO TURN US FROM M4DNESS 


It IS this mutual distrust which 
causes the 3 ifficulty It might be dis 
pelled bv having both sides make it 
tlear that thev will fight onlv in 
defence, that neither the govern- 
ments and peoples of the West nor 
those of the USSR and its satel- 
lites could survue the shcKk of total 
war, and that the hope of victors 
in war has become illusorv 

I do not wish to see such a view 
pic \ ailing on one side onlv, how- 
('\cr, for then it becomes defeatist — 
aiul, teirible as a new war would be, 
I should still prefer it to a universal 
( ornmunist empire 

I he prcliminarv steps towards 
this conference ought to lx taken b\ 
n( utrals, who would draw' up a 
document setting forth the likeK re 
suits of war Comments upon this 
document W'ould be invited from 
both cam[is If the neutrals do their 
work in the right spirit, it ought to 
be possible to get both camps toad 
mit the pistice of what the\ s,i\ 
And it both sides admit this to the 


neutrals, it is no great further step 
to admit It to each other 
It would be essential for the 
report of such an inquiry to be re- 
ceived with the widest publicitv on 
both sides of the Iron Curtain The 
report should emphasize the inevit- 
able harm to practicallv everv in 
habitant of a belligerent countr\ I 
am not thinking only of such dis 
asters as the obliteration of large 
cities but of the destruction of crops, 
the spread of disease 

I believe that this kind of insesii 
gation might turn men aside from 
collective madness, that both sides 
could be persuaded that nothing is 
to be gained b\ war, and that then 
IS no harm in saving so It would 
then be possible for both sides to 
have confidence that disputes wouKI 
be settled bv negotiation 

Mankind might then graduallv 
aw'ake from the nightmare in which 
w'e have all been living, and the 
downward trend i)t the last 40 vears 
w’ouldgive place loordered progress 


Mtxmasters 

ilollywoot! children of oft divorced parents got into an 
argument As it became more heated, one said, “My father can 
beat voiir tathei 

“Are you kidding^” ciied the other “Your father my father’” 

Vkmn Ohio Hnuov 


I iRM in Unadilla, (ieorgia, stamj)s this on its statements “Pay 
us so we can pay them and they caij pay him and he can pay you ” 

I'lMiliUt OiMrri r quoted in f*ure (hi 



Drama in Real Life 



HE most generous man I 
ever met is named Cameron 
O’Day Maepherson. It is often said 
that Cam would give you his shirt, 
and this is true. But there was one 
time in his life when he refused to 
do so, with rather remarkable con- 
sequences. 1 am probably the only 
person in our town who knows the 
story. 

Our town is Cuernavaca, Mexico, 
the ancient city about 40 miles 
south of the capital to which the 
Emperor Maximilian and his wife, 
Carlotta, fled from Mexico City’s 
sometimes intolerable pressure; 
Cuernavaca, bruised and broken by 
the revoluuon and restored now to 
a new architectural glory in which 
we take great pride. 

Wc also take a genuine small- 
town pride in our cosmopolitan resi- 
dents— especially in kindly Cam 
Maepherson, partly because he is 

Nina Wilcox ^livam has written hun- 
dreds of articles and short stones, and a 
score of books and him scripts Her most, 
recent book is 7 he Inner Voice 


wealthy but chiefly because he is so 
wondrously open-handed. 

Cam lives in a great house that 
was built in the time of Cortez. He 
retrieved the palace from an almost 
ruined condition, and allowed it to 
retain enough of its scars to make it 
picturesque. It is the most thor- 
oughly used house I have ever been 
in. Cam is for ever bringing in 
strays, both human and four-legged, 
adding them to his already large 
family. 

One of the people he rescued was 
a starving painter. When the young 
man had been nursed back to nealth 
It was discovered that he had been a 
prize-winner at the Pans Beaux 
Arts school. In a few months he 
created a furore in Mexico’s artistic 
circles and sold 6o pictures in as 
many weeks, heaping prestige as 
well as gratitude on his benefactor. 
By then Cam was busy with an indi- 
gent composer and a photographer 
without a camera. 

Cam was only occasionally im- 
posed upon by his proteges; he was 


THE SHIRT OFF HIS BACK 


too much fhc canny Scot for that. 
“I have small use,” he said, “for 
the man who asks, ‘Please give me 
half your money because I have 
thrown mine away.* ” 

Once an old friend of his needed 
a loan and Cam knew there was no 
immediate prospect of this man’s 
being able to repay it. But he gave 
the man the required sum, and said, 
“This is a gift. I am giving it to you 
on condition that you never attempt 
to repay it and never mention it 
again. But I want you to promise 
that if you can ever spare the money 
you will give it on the same terms 
to someone who needs it.” 

One evening Cam and I were 
indulging in one of the uninhibited 
talks through which we had built 
up our friendship. He mentioned 
that he planned to get up at five 
o’clock the next morning and drive 
to the airport to meet an old woman 
whom he did not even know, who 
/as arriving to claim the body of 
her husband. 

“That’s awfully decent of vou,” I 
said. “Tell me, Cam, how did you 
get started doing all the things you 
do for people? You sometimes seem 
to be acting under a compulsion.” 

“I am,” he said, 

“Do you want to tell me what it 
IS?” I probed gently. 

For a while I thought he wasn’t 
agoing to answer. Then he began to 
talk, 

“It began a long time ago in the 
little town of Oil City,” he said. “I 
was just a kid on my first job and it 


was a tough one. My father, who 
built high'pressure oil and gas pipe- 
lines, wanted me to learn die busi- 
ness from the bottom up, and when 
I was 21 he jerked me out of the lap 
of luxury and sent me to Oil City to 
work on a slag heap. I didn’t mind 
the hard work but I hated the gnme 
and the loneliness. 

“You couldn’t live luxuriously on 
my pay, and there was nothing 
to do in the evening except play 
billiards, go to the one picture 
house or go for a walk. I walked 
because it was cheaper. One night, 
when I was taking one of my soli- 
tary strolls along the dreary main 
street, a man who had the lost look 
of the unemployed stopped me. 
‘Have you got another shirt?’ he 
asked. 

“I wasn’t used to panhandlers, 
and recoiled instinctively. I barked 
at him, ‘No, I haven’t The man 
muttered something and darted 
away. I walked fast in the opposite 
direction until I was brought to a 
dead stop by a sudden thought : Of 
course I had another shirt, and I 
could have given it to him ! 

“Why had he wanted this shut so 
desperately? I wondered if he was 
going to apply for a job the next day 
and was ashamed to show up in the 
soiled, shabby shirt he had on. The 
more I thought about it the more 
ashamed of myself I became, so I 
turned round and went looking for 
him. I walked the streets for hours, 
but never found him.” 

There wac -a cil# i— ^ 



THE READER'S DICES! 


spoke again. “I have been looking 
for him ever since,” he said. “The 
little favours I do for people arc 
mosdy an attempt to make up for 
the harsh turndown I gave that 
poor fellow.” 

Mexico City has always drawn a 
great many businessmen’s conven- 
tions, and It was not long after my 
evening at Cam’s that an association 
of men’s furnishings manufacturers 
held their big jamboree there Such 
conventions follow a pretty well- 
fixed pattern — three days of meet- 
ings, speeches, banquets, then sight- 
seeing* a night in Acapulco and a 
day in Taxco, after which the mem- 
bers limp into Cuernavaca and col- 
lapse beside somebody’s swimming 
pool before being hauled off to the 
airport. 

There arc more private swimming 
pools per capita in Cuernavaca than 
in Hollywood, and of course Cam 
had one. Beside it, at the tag end of 
this particular convention, lay half 
a dozen officers of the association. 
Among these was a Mr. Ben Black- 
man, the owner of the Everyman 
Dollar Shirt Company. He was a 
man of about Cam’s age and size, 
and he wore a pair of bathing trunks 
which Cam had lent him The day 
was fiery hot, and to escape sunburn 
Mr. Blackman draped his shirt round 
his shoulders. The sun became hot- 
ter, and Mr Blackman discarded 
his shirt and plunged into the pool. 
When he came out, Cam’s dogs haS 
torn the shirt to shreds. 


“You got another .shirt.?” he 
asked. 

“Sure,” said Cam. 

“Do you know,” said Mr. Black- 
man, “my asking you that question 
reminds me of something that hap- 
pened to me when I was a kid, and 
absolutely broke. There was the 
chance of a job for me coming up, 
and I didn’t have a clean shirt nor 
any monc\ to bu\ one So I stopped 
a young feller in the street and I 
asked him if he had another shirt. 

“Do you know, he didn’t have 
one * He was a decent looking feller, 
too, but m.ube not making much 
monev Then as I walked away, do 
you know what happened^” 

“I began to realize that the dirty, 
torn shirt on my liack was not as 
important as the spirit inside m\ 
body So I washed the both of them 
that night, and the next day I got 
the job, running a machine that 
made shirts to sell at In the next 
few days I got to thinking what a 
blamed outrage it was that a nice- 
looking kid, like the one who said 
he didn’t have another shut, 
couldn’t afford to own two shirts 
And that’s how I got the idea for 
my Everyman Dollar Shirts If it 
hadn’t been for that feller turning 
me down maybe I wouldn’t be 
where I am today.” 

Mr. Blackman slipped on one of 
Cam’s shirts. 

“Well, that happened a long time 
ago m Oil City,” he added “I don’t 
suppose you were ever in that town, 
were you, Mr. Maepherson?” 




R Kare Bit of Singing and dancing 

By George Kent 


5 OR II MONTHS of the )ear the 
i little Welsh town of Llangollen 
IS as grey and sleepy as a cocoon. 
7 hen in ]ulv out comes the butter- 
Hy — and for five days there is wild 
dancing in the streets and top-of-the- 
liings singing by men and women 
dressed to the last siKcr button in 
their native costumes 
These aic the da\s of the Olvm- 
pic Games of music, the annual In- 
ternational Eisteddfod (pronounced 
cs-teth'\od), when singers and dan- 
cers from Europe and Amen. a take 
over the town Austrians \odcl, 
Spaniards beat out rhythms with 
their heels; Irishmen fife; Dutch, 
Norwegians, Americans put their 
heads together in close harmon). 
And Welshmen, never loath to sing, 
roll out hymn-likc tunes in the com- 
petition of nation against nation. 

Condensed 


Last year about 2,000 men, 
women and children, representing 
22 countries, competed in a great 
arena There were no choirs, 22 
dance groups and 500 soloists. Not 
one of them was a professional. The 
cash prizes they sought to win were 
of secondary importance The con- 
testants took away with them some- 
thing far more precious — a warm 
feeling of fellowship with the peo- 
ples of other nations. 

You could not fail to see it if you 
watched them say good-bye to one 
another on the last day. Ukrainians, 
refugee millworkers living in Eng- 
land, tore ribbons from their cos- 
tumes and wound them about the 
necks of Dutch and Breton friends. 
Spaniards gave away their castanets. 
I saw a woman dancer put her cx- 
jquisite tortoise-shell comb into the 

from Etude l ^ 



10 THE reader: S DIGEST January 


hair of the gaunt old woman who 
had been her hostess. Then the tram 
arrived and everybody was kissing 
everybody else and saying things in 
his own language. 

Llangollen is a lovely place in the 
Berwyn Hills, about 200 miles 
north-west of London. It has an old 
ruined castle, a wooded canal and 
the frisky River Dee, from which 
fishermen take salmon within view 
oi the high street. 

The International Eisteddfod is 
entirely Llangollen’s party. More 
than 300 men and women give all 
or part of their umc every day of 
the year; and except for permanent 
office help no one is paid a penny. 

Accommodation for visitors is 
handled by a committee of house- 
wives, schoolteachers, shop assis- 
tants. With an attendance often ex- 
ceeding 130,000, schools, churches 
and trade union halls are converted 
into dormitories, and every spare 
bed within 20 miles is comman- 
deered. Throughout the year there 
are thousands of letters to type, 
pamphlets and pieces of music to 
tuck mto envelopes — and thousands 
of telephone calls to answer. Any- 
body with’an afternoon or evening 
to spare reports at the offices for 
work. 

Men and women pot the loveliest 
flowers from their gardens and bring 
them to the huge eisteddfod tent on 
the town’s only high-level five-acre 
tract, there to form a solid bank of 
living colour in front of the big 
stage. When the foreign teams ar- 


rive, townspeople arc at the station 
in London or at the^docks in Liver- 
pool to escort them to Llangollen. 

Shopkeepers and hotel owners 
naturally make money out of the 
event: deposits of some ^25,000 
above average have been recorded 
in the town’s two banks. But for the 
great majority money is not the in- 
centive. Scores of home-owners, tor 
example, refuse payment from their 
foreign guests. The show appeals to 
the idealism of the Welsh character 
and IS done for the sake of “inter- 
national good will.” 

This affair at Langollcn, now 
seven years old, is an exclusively 
musical development of the Royal 
National Eisteddfod, a purely Welsh 
institution going back 1,000 years. 
Eistedd in Welsh means to sit; fod 
is a place. Together they make a 
word for a meeting of people to lis- 
ten to poetry, singing and the play- 
ing of musical instruments. Hun- 
dreds of cistcddfodau take place in 
Wales every year. Abroad, wherever 
Welshmen live there arc others. 

The International was the brain 
child of a 40- year-old Welsh news- 
paperman, Harold Tudor. The idea 
came to him, he told me, during the 
war. One dav when bombs were 
falling and ack ack guns chattering 
he heard a farm boy singing, undis- 
turbed by the noise and danger. 

The song outlasted the bombard- 
ment and It seemed to Tudor that 
here, symbolically, was an answer 
to the problems of the world. 
Music, the one language all peoples 



7954 ^ OF SINGING AND DANCING 


understood, might make a chorus 
that would silence the guns for all 
time. 

After the war Tudor enlisted the 
interest of Gwynn Williams, a com- 
poser and publisher of music, and 
together they talked to George Nor- 
thing, chairman of the Llangollen 
Urban District Council. He called a 
meeting; Llangollen then and there 
decided to launch the International. 

A little calculating showed that 
such a gathering would cost the 
town about ^10,000, an enormous 
sum for Llangollen with a popula- 
tion of 3,000. The committee passed 
the hat. A garage owner tossed in 
^50; a housewife gave five shillings, 
a schoolboy a penny. Finally there 
was a fund of ;^8oo. Hardly enough 
— but the credit of Llangollen was 
good. Tudor and his associates sent 
out invitations. 

For a discouragingly long time no 
foreign group responded. Then the 
first entry — firora Kalmar, Sweden. 
Others came in a rush: from Bel- 
fast, Oporto in Portugal, from Flor- 
ence and Milan, from Winschoten 
in Holland. There were 14 coun- 
tries represented. 

The committee put out an^ urgent 
call for chairs — enough to accom- 
modate 8,000 people. In response 
came upholstered ^airs out of par- 
lours, sturdy oak ones out of kit- 
chens, settees, milking stools. Pews 
were borrowed from churches, 
benches from the schools. 

The first year was an enormous 
success, SOirituallv txnA 


Jack Bornoff, Executive Secretary 
of the International Music Council 
(UNESCO), has supervised the re- 
cording of a ‘‘musical documentary" 
of the 1952 Eisteddfod The record- 
ing, made with the B B C 's co-opera- 
tion, is on two long-playing records, 
WLP 6209-1, of the Nixa Record Co , 
Ltd , 35 Portland Place, London, W i 

The eisteddfod netted more tharl 
^2,000 from the sale of tickets, and 
It has continued to return a profit. 
In 1952, for example, the show cost 
^16,500 but cleared ^lyjoo. The 
profit goes into a fund for improv- 
ing the festival and into a sinkmg 
fund to erect a permanent structure 
as a gathering place. 

Competition in the singing fol- 
lows rigid rules. Listening to 100- 
odd choirs sing the same piece of 
music may sound monotonous, but 
it is astonishing how different it 
sounds when rendered by a group 
of London policemen and by Aus- 
trian shop assistants. 

Evenings are pure entertainment: 
soloists and choirs sing, various 
groups dance, and always there is 
either a fine symphony orchestra or 
a well-known ballet company. 

The great attraction at Llangoll- 
en, however, is the spirit displayed. 
On both sides of the foothghts, tnese 
arc simple people. Last year, for ex- 
ample, the Dutch singers were all 
factory workers, the French dancers 
vineyard hands from Tournus in 
the Burgundy region, the women's 
* choir from Bergen, Norwav. office 



THE READER’S DIGEST 


/.y 


Fred Tomlinson, conductor of 
the Rossendcilc (Lancs) winning 
choir, was asked if he were a pro- 
fessional musician “Ciood heavens, 
no,” he replied “I’m foreman in a 
slipper factory ” 

All got to Llangollen the hard 
way. The Dutch earned their e\- 
penses by collecting and selling 
w'aste paper A choir from Lyons 
made the journey with mone\ from 
benefit concerts One from Pl\- 
mouth sold rhubarb and ga\e 
bridge parlies and rummage sales 

Of all this the audience is aware 
and intenseh appreciatne Once 
listeners were casualh infijrrncd by 
the chairman that Luigi Castolo/zi, 
conductor of the Milan group, had 
sold his piano in order to defrav ex- 
penses The audience began to whis- 
per and after a while there was 
^130 — “to help pa\ the cost of a 
new piano.” 

In villages near Llangollen, where 
man\ of the contestants arc quar- 
tered, the choirs sing again after the 
big tent has gone dark They sing 
111 chuiches and on river banks. In 
Cefn Mawr the Spanish singers of 
Almaden and a choir of local fac- 
tory workers sang to each other un- 
til four o'clock in the morning In 
Glyn Cciriog the Schlesw ig-Hol- 
stein group strolled up and down 
the lanes singing while the Welsh 
at windows and m doorways re 
sponded. I remember particularly 
one Dutch group singing on a night 
that was so black you could not sec ‘ 
the faces of the choir. Their con- 


ductor donned w^hitc gloves, and it 
was thrilling to watch those appar- 
ently unattached hands marking 
the beat. 

Last July’s meeting was honoured 
by the visit of the Queen and the 
Duke of Edinburgh Long before 
the royal couple arrived the tent re- 
sounded with the singing of hymns. 
On the shapes ouisidt, 25,000 more 
listened to the music through loud- 
speakers Below, in the town itself, 
there are amplifiers so that the 
music from the Eisteddfod stage is 
audible to some 50,000 people 

I’o welcome the Queen there 
were ten choirs — over 1,000 voices 
— and when she made her way to 
the st<ige the massed singers rolled 
out Bach’s “All Honour, Praise and 
Blessing ’’ The song was taken up 
bv the audience and bv thousands 
outside the tent Down in Llangoll- 
en buses stopped and activilv in the 
sh(jps ceased as people in the streets 
and houses added their voices to the 
welcome It was the loveliest musi- 
cal ovation the ruler of a people ever 
received 

Tudor’s idea grows each year. 
Spain now has its own dancing 
eisteddfod. Visits back and forth 
among groups m Norway, Sweden, 
and Denmark are a development 
which mav in time evolve into an 
all-Scandinavian musical assembly 

The wealth of high spirits that 
pours through the little market 
town on the Dec is creating a bond 
among peoples of different lan- 
guages and backgrounds. 



Knowledge of the way the “fingers” work may save your wallet 

! 

Mow your Pocket 
Moff Pc Picked 

liy M\run M Stearns 



1 } YOU HWL nc\er had vour pock- 
Lts emptied b\ a total stranger, 
It was prubabK tor one of two rea- 
sons \ou do not look as it sou had 
much monev or \ou arc just plain 
luckv For pickpockets are plenti- 
ful, there may be a troupe within a 
few yards ot you in any crowded 
spot But you never see them, their 
freedom depends on escaping notice 
The one who does the actual steal- 
ing — called the “wire”— generally 
uses a folded newspaper to cover his 
hands in action Even if you are 
standing next to the man being 
robbed you are not likely to notice 
what is going on As the wallet 
comes out of the victim’s pocket it 
goes, unseen, between the folds of 
the newspaper. Few people — except 
police experts — appreciate the al- 
most uncanny skiH of the profes- 
sional pickpocket. 

“ Grift sense,” the unerring abil- 
ity to tell what the victim will do 


next, IS a pickpocket’s most im- 
portant asset For example a skilled 
wire may rest his forearm across the 
back of vour shoulders in a crowd, 
lightly, as it to keep you from get- 
ting too close Then he may touch, 
or “fan,” the “impression” (the 
noticeable shape of your pocket- 
book through your Ciothing) to 
make sure of its exact position. If 
you become suspicious, the muscles 
along your spine will tighten, and 
he will feel this through his fore- 
arm He also watches for a redden- 
ing of the skin below and behind 
your ears. By the time you grab for 
your pocket his hand is no longer 
there Your money, you find, is safe, 
or so you think 

But the wire comes right back. 
His grift sense assures him that now 
he can rob you at his leisure. Even 
if vou think you feel something at 
your pocket again, you’ll be too em- 
barrassed to grab towards your notc- 


Condtmtd from Paradr 


19 



rHE READER'S DIGEST January 

case a second time; it would look as man will search for his money to 
though you suspected the man be- make sure it is safe — and the well- 
hind of being a thief. distributed thieves will sec exactly 

A pickpocket knows that in a where each potential victim keeps it. 
cafeteria queue a man can be robbed Most pickpockets work in 
quite safely. He won’t drop a tray “troupes”; it is an apt name because 

of food to grab for his notecase, they arc all skilled actors. Typical 

Even if he starts to let go of the of this expert teamwork is the func- 

tray, a sharp “Look out! You arc tioningof a “jug troupe” that works 

spilling your tea ! ” will distract him. near banks. One dip, generally 

When a crowd is intent on, say, respectable and elderly, goes to a 

the climax of a horse race, an ex- bank and spends some time making 

perienced wire may even make his out a deposit slip. Meanwhile, from 

Victim lift his own arm to get it out the corner of his eye he watches 

of the way : a shght pressure will the queue. When he spots someone 

start it, and the victim will move making a fat withdrawal he strolls 

it automatically wherever the wire out of the bank just behind him. 

wants him to. The thief’s gnft sense As he reaches the pavement the 
tells him how much the victim will dip wipes his forehead with his 
do without becoming aware of it. handkerchief. This is a signal to the 
Sometimes at a country fair a wires that the man ahead of him is 

“dip”— the underworld term for worth fleecing. Then the close-up 

pickpockets in general — will jump dip tells the others where the 

on a box or chair to shout : “Look sucker’s money is by tucking the 

out for pickpockets !” Nearly every handkerchief into his own corre- 

"A ‘dip* or ‘ringer’ is very skilled in lifting a ‘poke’ (notecase) from a ‘pit’ 
(inside breast pocket),” says Hugh Clcvcly, well-known crime writer • "One 
precaution against the latter is to have a button on your inside breast pocket, 
though this IS far from infallible Some of those boys could take your braces, 
and the first you’d know about it would be when your trousers started coming 
down V If you put anything in a hip pocket, especially in a crowded place, you 
arc simply inviting the attention of one of the experts who specialize in ‘whizzing 
the bottle’ (robbing from hip pockets) What he will do is to slit your pocket 
swiftly and neatly with a ‘cniv* (razor blade) and your wallet will drop easily 
into his hand 

“A word of warning from Hugh Clcvcly, President of the Sadder-and- Wiser 
Club. Don’t carry compromising documents in your notecase About three years 
ago, my pocket was picked 1 lost a notecase containing But 1 did not report 
this loss to the police In fact, I should have been most embarrassed if they had 
recovered the notecase. In addiuon to the it had four Irish Sweepstake 
tickets in it ” 



NO IV YOUR POCKET MAY BE PICKED 


'954 


spending pocket. The poor fellow 
hasn’t a chance. 

Perhaps the victim signals a taxi. 
The crooks act swiftly. As the man 
opens the door of the cab a hand 
grabs his arm. “This is my taxi a 
well-dressed man he never saw be- 
fore declares indignantly. Before the 
victim has a chance *to answer, a 
busybody sticks his nose in. “That’s 
right*” he says vehemently. “I saw 
him signal first.” (These two mem- 
bers of the troupe arc “stalls.”) 

Whoever wins the argument, the 
man with the money loses his wal- 
let. While his attention is on the 
strangers, a wire comes up behind 
and walks off with it. 

Pickpocket troupes may have as 
many as five or six members. They 
operate at football games, at festi- 
vals, in the underground, near de- 
partmental store escalators, at bus 
and railway stations. 

Between the members of a skilled 
troupe and the clumsy beginner 
there arc years of development. 
Usually the pickpocket starts as a 
“fob worker,” robbing the small 
change pocket inside the right-hand 
pocket of a man’s jacket. It is the 
kasicst pocket to reach without dc- 
(tection, but the small take is scorned 
by experienced fingers. 

Some beginners start by specializ- 
ing in robbing women. They may 
be “patch workers” (the “patch” is 
the side pocket in a lady’s jacket) 
or “hanger bingers,” who rob a 
lady’s shoulder purse, or “hanger.” 

The “lush worker” operates only 


on drunks. He may be the “sneak 
type,” who robs his quarry m a 
tube or on a park scat. Or he may 
be the “roustcr type,” who pretends 
to be a Good Samaritan and helps 
an inebriated victim home, robbing 
him on the way. 

The highest classification is the 
“pit worker.” The “pit” is the hard- 
to-reach inside breast pocket of a 
man’s jacket, where most wallets 
arc kept. Usually the operator car- 
ries a coat over his arm as he comes 
towards you; brushing past, he 
raises the arm holding the coat, as 
if to fend you off. Beneath the shel- 
ter of that coat everything in your 
inside breast pocket leaves with 
him, and you haven’t felt a thing. 

In spite of their skill, however, 
most pickpockets are soon caught 
by the police and spend one term 
after another in gaol. 

There are no sure ways to avoid 
having your pocket picked. But 
here are some common-sense points 
everyone should remember: Carry 
with you only what money you 
need and don’t display it. If you’re 
a woman, don’t let your handbag 
dangle, hold the bag itself with your 
hand on the clasp. For a man, an in- 
side pocket IS safer than an outside 
one; a purse in a hip pocket is the 
easiest pickings. Above all, be sus- 
picious in crowds. Move instandy 
when jostled. If you are unfortunate 
enough to be a victim there is one 
sure rule: Tell the police at once, 
•You may get your money back — 
and you help protect others. 



cms wiae World 



I H\D LEFT my portable radio at a 
little shop in Rome tor repairs When 
I called for it the elderly proprietor 
tried to explain something, but his 
English was halting At last he 
pointed with a stubby pencil to the 
bill He drew a line through the 
amount and put down a nev\ Figure 
which reduced it by halt Beaming at 
me, he asked, "'Stati Lnitt, no'^** 

I nodded and again he sought des- 
perately for words Then he wrote 
slowly on the bill “America give, 
give, give I thank “ 

— DtNFRE AilfcN (Wilton Connicticut) 

It IS a well-known fact — in Brazil, 
anyway — that Brazilians like to de- 
cide things for themselves and avoid 
police intervention whenever possible 
One day at a market in the centre of 
Sfio Paulo I saw two men cursing and 
fighting An interested crowd was 
watching when suddenly there was 
a cry of “Police 

In no time ihc crowd had dispersed 
and the combatants started an amic- 
able conversation while they patted 
each other’s shoulders. 


As soon as the policeman turned the 
corner, they pitched into each other 
with the same violence, vshile the 
same croud reassembled to cheer them 

on - Vfrc V iCHRn\ A Brazil) 

Point at the town of Bois le Roi 
near Fontainebleau were confronted 
with a sudden rash ot “U S. C>o 
Home” signs which began appearing 
on the \illjgc walls — all of them only 
a few feet from the ground 

It could have been a Communist 
midget, but it turned out to be the 
work of three young children of 
American Air Force officers stationed 
at Fontainebleau. They were home- 
sick. —New York Herald Tribune 

The K^RF^N LAUNDRESSES on OU^ 
island do our laundry the same way 
their people have done for centuries 
they squat down on the floor beside 
the luo and work in that position for 
hours. A U S Air Force clerk, who 
fdt sorry for them, spent an entire 
evening laboriously constructing a 
large table for the washtubs The next 
morning he called round to sec how 



UFE IN THIS WIDE WORLD 


the table, had improved working 
conditions 

The table had been moved to the 
centre of the room, the tubs had been 
filled, and the women were industri- 
ously scrubbing away — squatting atop 
the tabled 

— Capt Brlce Davis, US Axr Force 

W E LIVE in Lugano on the main 
highway to the St Gotthard Pass. 
Here the road divides deceptively, a 
new broad street leading to a remote 
mountainous region, while the narrow 
one IS the main road Many a motorist 
takes the wrong turning 

hor some lime now a white haired 
nian on crutches very feeble and very 
old— has been standing at the cross- 
loads, and if a driscr sw'crvcs towards 
the wTong road he signals ‘‘halt” with 
his crutch, then gnes a friendly ex- 
planation lie speaks four languages, 
lor wc arc all polyglots in Switzer- 
land, and an unending line of cars 
keeps him husv 

“I am good for something after all,” 
he told me the other day with a 
radiant smile “And I have even made 
some friends ” Proudly he showed me 
postcards from Michigan, Sw'edcn, 
Brazil 

So he stands there, in sunshine and 
rain, the helpless man with the help- 

♦ hand 

— C C Marvii L (Liijr^no, 5K*ifzrr/dn</) 

When our ship was in the South 
Pacific, the condensers, which arc es- 
sential for making fresh water, broke 
down. After days of strict water 
rationing in that hot, sticky climate 
wc were all longing for a shower. Our 
■skipper was equal to the emergency. 
Guided by the radar pips, he headed 


^3 

the ship in a certain direction until an 
immense black raincloud loomed in 
sight Then the loudspeaker blared : 
“All hands topside. Bring a bar of 
soap and strip down.” 

Our first pass under the torrent of 
rain got us soaked and lathered The 
return run took care of the rinsing. 

— Paui Bi RNS (Eureka California) 

When the Americans first took 
over the big new air base nearby, we 
wondered what had hit our sleepy 
little English tow'ii On payday the 
boys raced each other the 14 miles 
from the base with money to burn and 
plenty of animal spirits to work off 
For the locals, buying a beer became 
something of a hazard — you might 
get in\oKcd in a free for-all Gold 
diggers from miles round moved in 
to help the boys spend their money 
Maiden ladies wTote indignant letters 
to the papers Hunstanton was pil- 
loried as a sort of latter day Babylon 
with an American accent 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, 
all was peace and c]uiet again “Has 
Hunstanton been put out of bounds?” 
I asked a senior officer from the air 
base 

“Nothing so old-fashioned,” he re- 
plied “It’s ]ust that the men’s wives 
are over from the States now ” He 
paused “Those wives are the greatest 
Air Police in the world ” 

— Graham T isher (Hunstanton) 

Working as a chemist in various 
parts of the world I have experienced 
some things I would not have believed 
had I not seen them The strangest 
occurred 14,000 feet up in the moun- 
tains of Peru. 

One atternoon the mining engineer 



THE READEJCS DIGEST 


^4 

handed me a bag of ore samples and 
told me it was important that Sample 
No. 20 be tested first. He was going 
away until the following afternoon 
and wanted a report ready by then. 
Pedro, my native assistant — a Cholo 
Indian — ^Imd gone home, a mile across 
the mesa, and 1 intended to leave a 
note for him in the laboratory, asking 
him to start the test in the morning. 
But I forgot about it, and next morn- 
ing I rowed out on Lake Pun Run to 
shoot ducks. 

About three miles out, I suddenly 
remembered the sample and started 
back pronto, against a strong wind. It 
was four when I got to the laboratory. 
Pedro was there, and I told him about 
the sample. 

“She feenish, scnor,” he replied, 
and handed me the result. 

“But, Pedro,*’ I gasped, “how did 
you know it was a hurry-up sample?” 

“Your antma, he coming in and 
telling me.” 

I was bewildered, but when I told 
the mining engineer about it he 
laughed. “These antmas are routine 
stun with some Cholos. Literally, 
anima means *soul,* but with them it 
has a meaning all its own. I don’t 
understand it. I’m merely an en- 
gineer.” 

And I’m merely a chemist. 

— Rotal Davis (Altadma, Ctdifamui) 


While a missionary among the 
headhunters of northern Luzon, I was 
one day riding along a narrow trail 
and, rounding a sharp turn, saw be- 
fore me several of my female parish- 
ioners taking a shower under a 
roadside waterfall. Not wanting to 
embarrass them, I began talking 
loudly to my pony, proceeding slowly 
enough for them to scramble behind 
some bushes. 

Instead, with one accord they 
cupped their hands over their faces 
and stood there glistening in their 
naked beauty. They apparently were 
working on the theory — |ustified in 
this instance — ^that I would not recog- 
nize them, and that if I did not 
recognize them they couldn’t be em- 
barrassed. — Charlbs Norris 

{SagadA, Mt Protnncf, Phtitppmes) 

A YOUNGSTER whom I was tutoring 
in physics didn’t seem to comprehend 
the concept of weight at all — especi- 
ally when I tried to convince him that 
a pound of feathers was exactly as 
heavy as a pound of iron. I finally 
gave up when he said, “You stand 
down in the courtyard and I’ll drop a 
pound of feathers on your head, from 
the second floor. Then I’ll drop a 
pound of iron. After that, if you say 
they weigh the same. I’ll believe you.” 

—Paul Kdium 


Contributions Wanted 

Following Its inception in the September issue, **ljfc in This Wide 
World'* ma^es its second appearance Contributions are welcomed: to the 
first contributor of each item published, payment will be made at The 
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better Address "Life in Wide World** Editor, The Reader's Digest, 




m {Ki itoyiK 

I [V(» HAD 

By 

Yehudt Menuhtn 

World-famous violinist 

LEVEN YEARS OLD, I WaS tak 
ing a violin lesson with 
Georges Enesco, my teacher, in his 
Pans studio. A deep-chested, power- 
ful man with a rugged, gentle face, 
Enesco looked at me across the vio- 
lin he held under his chin, and 
shook his bow. “To play great 
music,” he said, “you must keep 
your eyes on a distant star.” 

At the time, I took this to mean 
simply, “Give your very best to 
every piece.” As I grew up, how 
ever, I found that Enesco’s words 
meant a lot more. They have helped 



One night during World War II, 
1 was at a Quonset-hut hospital in 
the Aleutians, waiting to play for 
«ome 40 wounded soldiers who had 
had no “live” entertainment for two 
years. As my accompanist sat down 


at the battered piano, he discovered 
that half the keys on the aged in- 
strument would not play. We tried 
one movement of a sonata, but 
could not go on. 

This left me in a trying predica- 
ment. The violin is not ordinarily a 
solo instrument — it needs accom- 
paniment to provide harmony. Our 
scheduled programme of gipsy airs 
and light pieces would be impos- 
sibly thin and weak on the violin 
alone. 

Something inside me said, “Play 
Bach.” Only Bath has written mu- 
sic containing its own harmony and 
counterpoint. But Bach is also diffi- 
cult to comprehend, and my whole 
purpose in coming to this forsaken 
place was to please the wounded 
men. Any entertainments officer 
would have pointed out that an en- 
tire evening of Bach was hardly the 
ideal programme for homesick sol- 
diers. 

At that moment Enesco’s advice 
— “Keep \our eyes on a distant 
star” — flashed into my mind. The 
distant star now was faith that the 
music I believed in would feed the 
spirit of any human being, not just 
the cultivated few. I played Bach. 

Those lonely men were far better 
prepared for this pure, noble music 
than a sophisticated city audience 
might have been. More deeply and 
directly than words, it spoke of pain 
and suffering, but also of calm and 
poise. Never have I had a more ap- 
preciative group, nor one more 

^5 




THE READER^S DIGEST 


26 

deeply stirred. The intensity of the 
silence as they listened, their roar of 
approval at the conclusion, showed 
me that Enesco s advice had indeed 
stood me in good stead. 

Once his words sustained me 
when nearly everyone, it seemed, 
was against me. Immediatelv after 
the war I accepted an invitation 
from the U.S. High Commissioner 
in Germany to play in Berlin Jews 
from New York to Israel were out- 
raged. They condemned me for 
agreeing to appear in a country 
where my people had been treated 
so shockingly (1 knew exactly how 
horrible it had been, for I had just 
spent several weeks in DP camps, 
playing to survivors of Buchenwald 
and Belsen, who told me their 
stones ) 

I suffered deeply under this criti- 
cism. Yet I felt that to give in to 
bitterness would be to fail the more 
distant goal to bring Christians 
and Jews together igain 

That night in Berlin I spoke to 
the audience “Hatred caused the 
extermination of Jews,” I said. “But 
to meet hatred with hatred is futile. 
Tonight I hope we can begin to 
understand each other through mu- 
sic we both love.” 

The programme received a tre- 
mendous ovation. For days after- 


wards I received letters like this: 
“When I heard you, a Jew, playing 
Beethoven as we Germans know it 
should be played, I was ashamed of 
what we had let happen.** I felt 
grateful again to Enesco’s counsel 
for supporting me in one of the 
most difficult crises of my career. 

You don’t have to be a musician 
to benefit from my teacher’s wis- 
dom. I felt the truth of it when I 
visited Rockefeller Institute Here, 
a scientist worked with quiet 
absorption developing antibiotics; 
there, another investigated a pos- 
sible cure for tuberculosis; a third 
studied the effects of too much 
sugar in the blood. Thev were as 
dedicated as monks in a 14th cen- 
tury monastery, vet their lives were 
being fulfilled because their eyes 
were on the star 

Anyone who lifts his gaze to the 
thing that makes his work bigger 
than himself knows what I mean 
CJoing through a restaurant kitchen 
once, I paused to watch the dish- 
washing machine “This is the most 
important job in the place,” ex- 
plained the Negro helper tending it. 
“If we don’t get the dishes real clean 
and keep the water hot enough^ to 
kill all the germs, folks will At 
sick.** 

He had his eye on the star. 


In the British Museum one can sec 75 drafts of Thomas Gray 's poem. 
Elegy written in a Country Churchyard Gray didn’t like the first way 
he wrote it nor the second nor the third. He wasn’t satisfied till he 
scribbled it over and over, 75 times. -Cad Sandburg m Household Htganne 



Behind the scenes in Persia — the true story of a widely misrepre- 
sented ruler and of his return to power 



Tkc Skak joins 
tkc Revolution 



August 19 last the young 
Shah of Persia and his 
wife, lunching in the Ex- 
celsior Hotel in Rome, were trying 
to avoid the curious glances from 
nearby tables. The Shah, news- 
papers were saying, had run away 
from his country • an unkingly act, 
the climax of a career of weakness 
and indecision. 

Now the world is beginning to 
realize how wrong that judgment 
was. 

Nobody who knows the Shah 
ever did believe that he was a 
coward. He daringly pilots his small 

ijl^t *' ij' U '• .4 >. 'V. 

Max THORNBtjRG, industrial consulunt, 
petroleum engineer and authority on the 
Near East, has been chairman of the board of 
engineers of Standard Oil of California, vice- 
president of the Bahrein Petroleum Com- 
pany and *the Californian Texas Oil Com- 
pany, and adviser to the U S. State Depart- 
ment Mr Thornburg makes his home on an 
island in the Persian Gulf. 


By 

Max W. Thornburg 


plane over Persia’s rough, half- 
charted mountain country. His 
favourite sport is hunting wild boar 
on foot He walks alone in the 
streets of Teheran, a perilous thing 
for a monarch Once an assassin got 
close, fired five shots from a re- 
volver before he was cut down. The 
Shah, blood streaming from his 
face, calmly stepped over the writh- 
ing body of the assassin and took 
competent command of the situation. 

This was no coward. Why then 
did he leave his country? 

The Shah had issued a decree dis- 
missing Premier Mohammed Mos- 
sadegh. But Mossadegh had arrested 
the officer bringing the decree and 
turned loose the Communist bands 
of the Tudeh Party and the organ- 
ized mobs of his own nationalist ex- 
tremist followers. They were run- 
ning wild in the city, shouting, “To 
.the gallows with the Shah!*’ 



28 THE READER'S DIGEST January 


General Fazollah Zahedi (today 
Premier) assured the Shah that this 
did not mean defeat. But now a 
change in government could not 
come peacefully. There would be 
bloodshed. 

The Shah’s advisers implored him 
to leave the country for a time so as 
not to be associated with the violence 
that was coming. Furthermore, in 
this showdown between the Shah 
and Mossadegh, the outcome would 
depend finally on the people. And 
It IS a tradition in the Moslem world 
that, when a leader wants a decision 
from his followers as to whether 
they endorse or reject him, he goes 
away. It started with Mohammed 
himself. The Year One of the Mos- 
lem calendar is the Hegna, when 
Mohammed departed from Mecca 
to Medina, leaving his fate in the 
hands of his followers The tradition 
has been followed many times since. 

The Shah and his Queen, Soray- 
ya, flew to Bagdad, then to Rome. 
As soon as his departure became 
known in Teheran, crowds poured 
into the streets in a spontaneous de- 
monstration of endorsement. There 
were all kinds of people : the ragged 
poor from the slums, well-dressed 
citizens from handsome villas, shop- 
keepers, professional men, beggars. 
They milled together in the broad 
avenues shouting, “Long live the 
Shah!” 

Mossadegh ordered the army to 
disperse the crowds. But the army 
failed him. Soldiers broke ranks andr 
joined ' the crowd. Truckloads of 


troops entering the city turned over 
part of their arms to the (irst pro- 
Shah groups they met. 

The fighting began. There was 
the rattle of Sten guns and rifle fire 
all over the city. From the start the 
day went against Mossadegh. One 
by one the key places fell: police 
station, Radio Teheran, the govern- 
ment buildings, Mossadegh’s home. 

This was not a coup. It was a 
popular revolution. When a repor- 
ter brought the news to the Shah’s 
lunch table in Rome, the monarch 
said what was in his heart: 

“Now the people have made 
me their Shah*” 

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi 
succeeded to the throne of Persia in 
1941, at the age of 21. Few mon- 
archs have inherited rule over so 
much miserv and corruption. 

The population is about 20 mil- 
lion. More than four-fifths are peas- 
ants living in some 40,000 small 
farming villages. Their homes are 
mostly wretched mud huts. The 
landlords own the land, huts and 
tools — practically the peasants, too. 

The landlords arc of the feudal 
aristocracy, the “300 families.” An 
owner in moderate circumstance|^ 
may own 20 or 30 villages, a nch 
one 200 or 300. As a rule the owner 
never secs his villages — he lives in 
Teheran or abroad. His business is^ 
done by overseers. 

Usually the peasant gets two-fifths 
of the crop. His tools arc primitive, 
his methc^s centuries old. Almost 



29 


/ 95 ^ THE SHAH JOINS 

no peasant has enough to eat. Al- 
most all are illiterate. Half the 
babies die at birth or soon after. 

But statistics don’t give you the 
picture. You have to see — as I have 
seen — a little girl of five, clothed 
only in a ragged cotton shirt, fol- 
lowing her mother, equally ragged, 
through the snow. (The winters in 
Persia are bitter.) They arc looking 
for dried dung for fuel. Not to heat 
the hut — that would be unthink- 
able extravagance — but to cook their 
miserable meal 

With most Persian families when 
winter comes the chances arc 
against all the family being alive by 
spring. 

Sometimes hunger forces the 
peasant off the land He goes to the 
city looking for a job. There again 
he is up against the 300 families, 
who own the factories too If he’s 
lucky he gets work at 45 2d, a day. 
He is especially lucky if he has chil- 
dren aged ten to twelve. That is just 
the right age for the rug factories. 
The small fingers are the right size 
for tying the knots. The child, or 
Its parent, gets fourpence for each 
1,000 knots. 

The 300 families run the country. 
They or their men arc the members 
of the Maflts (parliament) and have 
the administrative jobs. 

As to corruption in office: one 
^ical example describes it. A 
former government official arranged 
for his brother to get a large foreign- 
exchange permit. Ostensibly it was 
tb buy water pumps for a city. As 


THE REVOLUTION 

the brother knew, the pumps had 
already been bought, at twice their 
value, through another official’s 
nephew, and installed not in the 
city where they belonged but on 
a farm belonging to a prominent 
judge. So the brother sold the per- 
mit at black-market rates, put half 
of the proceeds on loan in the ba- 
zaars at two per cent per month and 
with the other half made a down 
payment on the governorship of a 
province where he knew that some 
big road contracts were coming up. 

Into this muddle of evil came the 
Shah— inexperienced, unprepared, 
surrounded by intrigue — but he had 
a fixed purpose. He wanted to bring 
his people out of the misery in 
which they lived, and he wanted to 
make Persia a modern, constitu- 
tional democracy. 

First he tried “social service.” 
For example, with his sister. Prin- 
cess Ashraf, he set up a rehabilita- 
tion centre for beggars In three 
years it took 12,000 of them off the 
streets of Teheran, taught them 
trades. It still functions — heartening 
to see. 

Then in 1946 he put a group of 
his most progressive supporters to 
work outlining a “Seven-Year De- 
velopment Plan,’’ to be financed en- 
tirely by revenues from the oil. The 
team was sparked by Abol Ebtehaj, 
governor of the National Bank, 
now a trusted expert in the World 
Bank in Washin^on. 

As a consulting engineer, I was 



THE READER'S DIGEST January 


asked to secure the services of Over- 
seas Consultants, Inc., a New York 
group of leading American engin- 
eering and management advisers 
who had successfully carried out 
large-scale operations in many parts 
of the world. What they proposed 
was no less than the complete re- 
building of Persia: agriculture and 
industry, health and education. 

The Shah persuaded his govern- 
ment to authorize a thoroughgoing 
survey of the Plan. This took two 
years and cost ^525,000. The Plan 
was big, but practical. It did not 
propose huge hydro-electric projects. 
It proposed more village doctors, 
hospitals, schools; advice to farmers 
on simple but efficient farming 
methods In industry no great steel 
mills or car factories were to be 
built; rather, small factories making 
needed implements for the local 
market. 

Over the seven years the Plan 
would cost ^^228,000,000 Persia had 
the money — then. The oil revenues 
from Britain were still flowing in. 
The Shah exerted himself vigor- 
ously. Without his support it never 
would have been possible to get the 
initial appropriation through the 
feudally controlled Majlis. The bill 
was enacted in 1949. 

I was appointed to head the work 
of OCI in Persia. The function of 
our organization was purely advis- 
ory. Executive decisions and expen- 
ditures would be made by Persians. 
The Shah’s personal interest was ii> 
tense. When I wanted to sec him 


he was never too busy to give me 
an audience. And he often"called me 
in to tell me ideas of his own. 

His knowledge of the living con- 
ditions of the people was rather re- 
markable. For example . the Plan’s 
technical staff had developed a 
small, inexpensive paraffin heater 
for use in the peasants* huts. The 
Shah had one put in his office in the 
palace. After watching it he said to 
me one day. “The frame is good 
for cooking and heating. But in the 
cheese-making season I doubt that 
it will support the large, heavy 
cheese pan without tipping over. 
You see, the floors of the peasants’ 
huts are not as smooth as this ” 

In the Middle East most high 
officials have never seen a peasant’s 
hut except as part of the scenery. 

The Plan might have succeeded 
— but then came the sudden ending 
of the oil revenues in 1950-51. This 
IS not the place to go into the dis- 
pute between Mossadegh and the 
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The 
whole thing was unnecessary, and it 
brought heavy loss to both Persia 
and the company. 

When the oil revenue ended, the 
Plan folded up and the OCI experts 
went home. 

Then the Shah turned to another 
scheme for helping his people. Of 
the big landowners, he is ffie big- 
gest From his father he inhentra 

1.000 villages, occupied by some 

250.000 peasants. His farm acreage 
is perhaps three million. His plan: 
to distribute every one of those acre) 



t9S4 SHAH JOINS 

to the peasants who tilled them. 

It wasn’t’a give-away. Each peas- 
ant would receive title to an aver- 
age of 20 acres on condition that he 
would develop it, paying for the 
land over a 25-year period about 
£y) a year. The first distribution 
was in 1951, when the village of 
Davodabad and its farm land were 
turned over to the inhabitants. 

Later the plan ran into difficul- 
ties. It isn’t enough just to give a 
man 20 acres of land. The Persian 
farmer needs the help of a bank — 
just as most farmers do. He needs 
advances on future crops to finance 
the purchase of seed, fertilizer, tools. 
And he desperately needs technical 
advice on how to improve his farm- 
ing methods. To meet those needs 
the Shah hoped to get help from 
the United States. 

Help was forthcoming — ^but not 
111 th^ way It was needed. Aid funds 
were allotted to Persia, but initially, 
at least, they weren’t spent to help 
the Shah’s plan, or through Persian 
channels. There were triumphant 
demonstrations of what could be 
done with tractors and other ma- 
chines, few of which could be ob- 
tained by the impoverished masses. 
U.S. aid agents became more realis- 
tic as time went on, but practical 
help was necessary at once. 

The Shah and his organization 
went on doing what they could with 
^at they had. More villages and 
farm lands were distributed to peas- 
ants. As a result, peasants of neigh- 
bouring villages, belonging to the 


THE REVOLUTION j/ 

Mossadegh put an end to the 
Shah’s social service plans for a time; 
but since his return to Persia the 
Shah has pressed on with his dis- 
tribution of land On October 25ih, 
in the marble palace at Teheran, 
32,000 acres of land were ceremoni 
ally handed over to i ,600 peasant 
cultivators This distribution of former 
royal property, in the Takistan area 
north-west of the Persian capital, was 
financed by the Shah’s land agency 
and the U S Point Four programme 
To date the Shah has handed over to 
his people about 53,500 acres 

landowners, became restive. They, 
too, demanded land. This brought 
the Shah increased hostility from 
the majority of the 300 families. 

Presently the Shah ran into real 
trouble. Its name was Mossadegh. 

Mossadegh’s rule was government 
by mob. To induce the Majlis to pass 
his measures he would put a mob in 
the square in front of the parliament 
building, threatening the members* 
lives It was as crude as that 
The Shah was opposed to all that 
the reactionary Mossadegh stood 
for. But above all else he wanted 
constitutional government A con- 
stitutional monarch does not dismiss 
a minister who has the support of 
parliament. I'he Majlis, corrupt and 
cowardly though it might be, was 
the legal parliament — and it sup- 
ported Mossadegh. 

The two years and four months 
of Mossadegh’s term of office were 
a nightmare for the Shah. He was 



rHE READER'S DIGEST 


frustrated in all that he tried to do 
for his people. Even the land-dis- 
tribution plan had to be scrapped; 
Mossadegh, playing for the support 
of the feudal landowners, forced 
him to end it. 

The break came when Mossa- 
degh, after a false plebiscite, dis- 
solved the Majlis Now he had gone 
beyond constitutional government. 
The Shah acted. He signed two de- 
crees: one dismissing Mossadegh, 
the other appointing General Za- 
hedi Premier. The successful popu- 
lar revolution followed. In the for- 
eign offices of the West there was 
vast relief. They had almost written 
off Persia to the Communists. 

But now that the West has an- 
other chance in Persia what should 
be Its policy ^ 

Surely the first consideration must 
be to help the Shah keep in office a 
responsible government devoted to 
the economic and social betterment 
of the people. The present govern- 
ment may prove to be just that. 
Five of the cabinet members worked 
with my colleagues and me on the 
Seven-Year Plan To my knowledge 
they arc able, honest men 

Persia may need help in paying 
its bills for a time. For that the 
$45,000,000 promised by President 
Eisenhower was well timed and 
should be ample for some months at 
least. In return Persia in due course 
should be expected to avail itself of 
its own resources by coming to^a 
settlement with Britain on oil. 


Such a settlement might come 
fairly quickly; or it could be de- 
layed because of the strong anti- 
British feeling that Mossadegh and 
his extremists have built up. The 
first necessity of the Shah and his 
government is to stay in power. 
Therefore, in preparing for negotia- 
tions with Britain, they must keep 
constantly aware of the temper of the 
people, and avoid any abrupt action 
which might lead to their overthrow. 

Over and above the oil settlement, 
however, there must be a change in 
the economic and social climate in 
Persia. The people must sec some 
hope of escaping from their misery. 

What would give the people hope 
is a broad programme of small-scale 
operations New tools for one vil- 
lage. A good dirt road for another, 
to bring Its products to market A 
resident doctor in another. A school 
in another And, above all, good 
technical advice on farming * Such 
a programme can be carried out 
only through an organization set 
up by Persia for the purpose, like 
that for the Seven-Year Plan. 

Such an organization would need 
more than “technical assistance" 
from abroad. It would need top- 
level advice on how to organize a 
broad programme — a programme 
which would offer the nations of 
the West another chance in Persia, 
strategic key to the entire Middle 
East. Perhaps the last chance. ^ 

* What can be done on this practical village 
level u now being aucceMfully demonatrated by 
the Near Eaat Foundation working in co-opera- 
tion with the Pertian Gkivernment. • 



spare the discipline and spoil the child 


Don't Be Afraid of "Don't” 


By Donald A Bloch, M D 

Chief Psychiatnat. Children’s Service, National Institute of Mental Health 
As told to Edith M Stem 


P ARENTS today have rightly turned 
their backs on the old, stern, 
arbitrary type of discipline which 
enforced continual unquestioning 
'’ibedicnce on their children. But 
many have wheeled about too far; 
statements like “It’s time to go to 
bed” or “That’s enough dessert” 
have become take-offs for a child’s 
arguments about why it isn’t time 
or why it isn’t enough. 

This over-tolerant attitude is an 
effort to save the little ones from 
“frustration’’ — a fate considered 
worse dian death. As a child psychi- 
atrist I am strongly opposed to frus- 
trating children. But children are 
not nearly as thwarted by controls 
suited to their age and to the occa- 
sion as they are by lack of the right 
kind of direction and discipline. 

I don’t advocate putting Ming 
vases and a hammer in the nursery, 
but I do maintain that a toddler can 
taught that he must not go near 
fragile objects in the living-room. 
Instead of keeping the room strip- 


ped like a barracks, parents need 
simply to say “Don’t touch ^’’ A 
child who never encounters opposi- 
tion for sound reasons is being 
shielded from situations he may 
have a hard time facing later 
on. 

Children are not born with a 
sense of right and wrong It is some- 
thing gradually absorbed as one 
grows up until, as a full-fledged 
adult conscience, it becomes an auto- 
matic inner signal that regulates be- 
haviour. While children are little 
they need to be provided with a 
conscience )ust as thej need to be 
provided with food and shelter. A 
child will become a more agreeable, 
likable person and therefore a hap- 
pier one if, long before he is able to 
grasp such abstractions as justice 
and fair plav, his mother simply 
makes him get off the swing and 
give Johnny a turn. 

As a matter of fact, most young- 
sters are happy to obey parents who 
arc fair, gentle and loving — unless 


Condensed from NottoM ParenUTeocher 



THE READER'S DIGEST January 


self-esteem is endangered, as when 
a boy IS asked to do some chore that 
keeps him from playing outdoors 
with his friends, or when a teen-age 
girl is forbidden lipstick, although 
the rest of her friends use it. 

Every parent has definite ideas 
of how his children should behave, 
and youngsters arc bound to be 
aware of them. For example, 
Mother may tell little Robert, when 
he wants to explore her desk, to go 
ahead, but her tone of voice betrays 
the fact that she doesn’t really want 
him to. So the boy, hearing permis- 
sion yet sensing objection, doesn’t 
know what to do Despite the fleet- 
ing disappointment, he would be 
much better off knowing exactly 
where he stands with her by hearing 
her say clearly “Desks are for 
grown-ups and I don’t want you to 
get into mine.” 

Another by-product of undirected 
behaviour is a confused state of 
mind. Going to bed, if not consist- 
ently regulated, can become a 
dilemma to a child. He is weary, 
but he does not want to miss any 
fun. A firm “Time for bed * ” solves 
the problem he can’t solve for him- 
self. 

A small child has to depend upon 
the decisiveness of an adult to keep 
himself in hand. Practically every 
normal child, at one time or an- 
other, will scream “I’ll kill you,” 
hitting out a his mother or father. 
If you give the youngster a whack 
or react to his outburst by shouting# 
“Don’t you dare talk to me like 


that!” you show him that you, too, 
are unable to control your-emotions. 
If you ignore the outburst or cajole 
or bribe him into calming down, he 
fails to learn the limits of acceptable 
behaviour and also gets an exag- 
gerated sense of his power. 

If you calmly say something like: 
“I'm sorry you feel that way; now 
tell me what you’re so angry 
about,” you show him that he is not 
all-powerful, for you have not 
withered under his fury, and you 
have set the line beyond which he 
may not go. Kindly and strong, re- 
specting his right to have feelings 
but firmly disapproving of the way 
he acts, you have not frustrated him 
— you have brought him relief. 

Loving direction had been miss- 
ing in the life of a delinquent boy 
I once treated, and when he was 
seven he had announced, suitcase in 
hand, “I’m going to run away.” 
His mother had merely said, “Go 
ahead.” She didn’t reallv love him, 
he felt, for she didn’t care what he 
did. 

The incident is unhappily typical. 
When a child threatens to leave 
home he is really pleading “Stop 
me * Please love me enough to stop 
me*” A casual reaction to a run- 
away threat takes the wind out of 
a child’s sails, but the dangerous for- 
lorn feeling persists in his mind. 

The ironic thing about over-per- 
missiveness in rearing children is 
the fact that we don’t set up a 
similar complete freedom of action 
as an ideal for ourselves; we donV 



DON’T BE AFRAfD OF 'DON’T" 


S5 


^954 

advocate s^narchy as our 
way of life. We defend 
spe<xl limits and other re- 
strictions, and would feel 
insecure without them. 

For children, a sense of 
wise guidance tells them 
that they arc precious ob- 
jects, loved and cared for. 
The other day I overheard 
Mary and Jeanne, two 
little girls in my neigh- 
bourhood. Mary asked, 
"Does your ntother let 
you play in the street?” 
"She never says any- 
thing,” Jeanne answered 
^'Mine won’t let me,” 


Lady Pakenham, Daily Express writer on 
children, and mother of eight herself, writes 
“ Children to be guided, for two reasons 
— (i) because they don’t know all the answers 
themselves yet, and they know they don’t 
know; (2) because our guidance proves our 
interest in them Dr Donald A Bloch, in 
his story of Mary and Jeanne, underlines this 
fact dramatically My eldest daughter taught 
It me when she was only ten months old! 
Crawling under a damson tree she picked up 
a fruit and popped it into her mouth ‘No,’ 
I said firmly ‘No, no, not in mouth’ She 
took It out, then popped it back, but inviting 
me with a smiling glance to forbid it again 
‘No,* I repeated ‘Out’ Out it came This 
exercise in discipline was performed a third 
time with immense zest Then the damson 
came out for good •” 


Mary saicl,aclding with obvious pride, poised m the assurance he's doing 

"she’s afraid I might get run over.” what is expected Reasonable rules, 
Even adolescents, although they with wholehearted go-aheads as well 
would be the last to admit it, crave as definite hold-backs, are more like 


a measure of adult control. It’s a 
striking fact that teen-agers, in their 
clubs, usually make more elaborate 
regulations for themselves than 
adults would make for them. 

Another way adult authority bol- 
sters children is that it often bails 


guide-lines than strait-jackeis. 

As a chdd grows older, parental 
authority should gradually be re- 
linquished The scope of what a 
youngster may do and the manner 
of directing him need to be changed. 
Small children can’t understand that 


them out of situations from which 
they can’t escape by themselves 
without losing face. If a grown-up 
makes two youngsters stop fighting, 
neither has the disgrace of losing. 

In their zeal never to prohibit or 
inhibit, in the desire to make their 
children’s lives more pleasant, over- 
permissive parents actually make 
them harder. If a child gets explicit 
i/istructions about what to do when 
his parents have company, he is 


too many sweets hurt teeth and di- 
gestion, and to reason with them is 
ridiculous; but for older children 
you should add an explanation At 
mid-tcens level you no longer tell 
them — you suggest. 

Ask yourself, “Is what I am al- 
lowing — or prohibiting — helpingmy 
child towards self-mastery and get- 
ting along with others ?" Todoaway 
v^ith proper discipline is throwing 
out the baby with the bath water. 




There’s nothing so shopworn as a 
last-minute Christmas shopper (Houston 
Chronicle) 

A waiter's tipical smile (Bertha (^dwm) 
. Her train of thought was wrecked 
by a flood of emotion (Cincinnati Enquirer) 
... As inseparable as ham and ego 

(quoted by Walter Winchell) . Shc Spent 

her afternoon at the beauty shop get- 
ting curled ready to strike (Henrietta Plate) 

Young ideas Grateful child, “I 
thank you from my bottom to my 
heart” (Dee Johnson) Littlc girl turn- 
ing on radio, ”I wonder what’s the 
weather predicament for today (CUff 

Johnson’s Family) 

Define Points Reducing— wishful 
shrinking (Richard Kinney) Trade 

secrets — what women do (Richard Ar- 
mour) . . Girdle— accessory after the 

fat (N B Guyoi) Strapless gown— 
when a woman won’t shoulder the re- 
sponsibility (quoted by Earl Wilson) 

Old saws sharpened Blood is thicker 
than water— and it boils quicker 
(Burnley Express and News) . . The pio- 
neers who blazed the trails now have 
descendants who bum up the roads 

(The Postage Stamp) 

Edward Arnold, “If you look like 
your passport photo— you need the 


trip” (San Francisco Examiner) • . . Mar 
celene Cox, “With three daughters, 
our problem hasn’t been keeping the 
wolf from the door, but feeding the 

pack” il^adtes' Home Journal) DlZZy 

Dean to fan who wanted to take his 
picture, “I’m at your exposal” (A1 

Hclford) 

Enjoying the signery On a student’s 
door, “If I’m studying when you enter, 
wake me up” iOak Leaves) In a 

garage, “God Bless Our Women 

Drivers” (Motor Service Magasine) 

Aside lines The Kinsey Report 
proves )ust one thing— women like to 

talk (Betty Reilly, quoted by Earl Wilson) 

I enjoy listening to the honk of the 
wild goose— except when he’s driving 
a car (Builders) You know a man is 
successful when the newspapers start 
quoting him on subjects he knows 

nothing about (Oregon Wisconsin Ob- 
server) . Some people are like blotters 
—they soak it all in and get it all 
backwards (Hudson Newsletter) The 

best thing to save for your old age is 
yourself (Craig, Colorado, Empire Courier) 

Some of these movies on TV are 
so old that they show bandits driving 
up in front of the bank— and finding 
a parking place (Bill Vaughan; 

What have you read or heard lately 
that deserves a wider audience? To the 
first contributor of each item used in 
this department a payment of 3 guineas 
will be made upon publication Con- 
tnbuttons should be dated and the 
source must be given 
Address Picturesque Speech Editor/ 
The Reader’s Digest, 27, Albemarle 
Street, London, W.i (Contributions 
cannot be acknowledged. 

3ft 



‘'If I Had My Life to Live 
Over Again—** 

I’d Pick 
More Daisies 

B\ Don Herold 

t COURSE, you can’t unfry an 
egg, but there is no law 
against thinking about it 
If I had my life to live over again, 
I would trv to make more mistakes 
1 would relax I would be sillier 
than I have been this trip I know 
of very few things that I would take 
seriously I would be less hygienic I 
would go more places I would 
climb more mountains and swim 
more rivers 1 would eat more 
sweets and less spinach. 

I would have more actual trou- 
bles and fewer imaginary troubles 
You see, I have been one of those 
fellows who live prudently and 
sanely, hour after hour, day after 
day. Oh, I have had my moments 
But if I had It to do over again, I 
would have more of them— a lot 
more. I never go anywhere without 
a thermometer, a gargle, a raincoat 
and a parachute. If I had it to do 
^ain, I would travel lighter. 

^It may be too late to untcach an 
old dog old tricks, but perhaps a 
word from the unwise may be of 


benefit to a coming generation. It 
may help them to fall into some of 
the pitfalls I have avoided. 

If I had my life to live over again, 
I would pay less attention to people 
who teach tension. In a world of 
specialization we naturally have a 
superabundance of individuals who 
cry at us to be serious about their 
imlividual speciality. They tell us 
we must learn Latin or History; 
otherwise we will be disgraced and 
ruined and ploughed and failed 
After a dozen or so of these pro- 
tagonists have worked on a young 
mind, they are apt to leave it in 
hard knots for life I wish they had 
sold me Latin and History as a lark 

I would seek out more teachers 
who inspire relaxation and fun I 
had a few of them, fortunately, and 
I figure It was they who kept me 
from going entirely to the dogs. 
From them I learned how to gather 
what few scragglv daisies I have 
gathered along 
life’s cindery 
pathway. 

If I had m\ 
life to live over 
again, 1 would 
start barefooted a 
little earlier in 
the spring and 
stay that way a 
little later in the 
autumn. I would 
play truant more 
I would shoot 
more paper wads 




?7 



THE REiDER’S DIGEST 


3 ^ 

at my teachers I would have more 
dogs I would keep later hours Td 
have more sweethearts 

I would fish more I would go to 
more circuses I would go to more 
dances I would ride on more 
merry-go-rounds I would be care- 
free as long as I could, or at least 
until I got some care — instead of 
having m\ cares in advance 

More errors are made solemnly 
than in fun The rubs of family life 
come in moments of intense serious- 
ness rather than in moments of 
light-heartedness If nations — to 
magnif\ my point — declared inter- 
national carnivals instead of inter- 
national war, how much better that 
would be* 

G K. Chesterton once said, “A 


characteristic of the great saints is 
their powei of levity Angels can 
fly because they can take themselves 
lightly One ‘settles down’ into a 
sort of selfish seriousness; but one 
has to rise to a gav self-forgetfulness. 
A man falls into a ‘brown study*; 
he reaches up at a blue sky ” 

In a world in which practically 
everybody else seems to be conse- 
crated to the gravity of the situa- 
tion, I would rise to glorify the levity 
of the situation P'or 1 agree* with 
Will Durant that “gaiety is wiser 
than wisdom ** 

But I doubt that I’ll do much dam- 
age with my creed The opposition 
IS too strong There are too many 
serious people trying to get every- 
body else to be too darned serious. 


Passwords 

Spain it is common and accepted custom fc^r a man to compli- 
ment a woman in the street These compliments range from a 
simple “Hello, you beautiful thing” to such complicated praises as 
“Long live the mother who bore you,” “You're so pretty you could 
stop a railway tram ” 

Spanish women are flattered by these gallant remarks, although 
they do not acknowledge them “I would be deeply offended if I 
went shopping and no strangers spoke to me,” a woman in Madrid 
said 

Spanish men are also pleased with the arrangement A Spaniard, 
asked what kind of reaction he got when he spoke to a pretty girl, 
said, “They mostly give you a big smile and then make believe they 
arc Ignoring yon But, oh, you should sec how they strut when they 
walk away *” 

Seville has passed a law against this type of approach and anyone 
who speaks to a strange woman is liable to a nne Seville men get 
round this by putting their hands over their lips every time they sec 
a pretty girl It usually breaks ^hc girls up 

— ^Art Buchwald in New York Herald Trtbune 



j By Wilfred Funk 

i ©SpORTSWRiters are allowed a freer choice of words than most other reporters, 
j and this encourages a rich and \aried \ocabularv The following v.ords have been 
5 picked from sports columns in \arious duly newspapers Check the word oi phrase 
y(^u belic\e is nearest in meaning to the ktv word Answers arc on the next page 


3 

i 

1 

A 

A 

•i 



A 

A 


:i 




H) \c'coi\ni (ak' o lade) — A recoQfnt on 
of or reward for iptnal rtnrit B a gradual 
increase of power C a loud cry D the noise 
of drums and cymhuls 

(2) c^pR'Cioi'sLY (cA prish' us li) — A m a 
cbangiable wax B dishonestly C fokmi^lx 
D weak-heartedh 

(3) siMi'iAiin (sim' u late id)— A pre- 
tendtd B t\iitid C attempted to utn 
ovtr D acted toalnhfx 

(4) MANDATORY (man' da tor rl) — A 

strong B obligatory C abrupt D 

o^imti'e 

(5> INIR^MLRAL (in tfA iitu' ral)— A 
suburban B diioratiie C between towm 
D n I thin the walls 

(b) MLCCA (mck' uh) — A any temple B a 
small^ high plateau C wasteland D a plai t 
o/ pilgrimage 

(7) siJteiNCTLY (suck singkt' li)— A 

concisely B ilearly C sariastually D 
wsely 

(8) hOMi-NT (fo ment') — A stir up. B 
sparkle C become sour D . boil, 

(9) TITANS (ti' tanz) — A mountains B 

apes. C kings D giants, 

(10) INESTIMABLE (in css' ti muh b’l) — A 

invaluable B world-jamous C of little 
worth D honourable * 


(11^ DiLPiiir (del' Ilk)- A heroic B V 
am tent C propkt/i D gambling | 

(12) Kic.RisMsiG (re gres' ing) — A de~ | 

dining towards a norse state B apologising 
C yielding O trespassing 

<13) poitNriMiTii s (pn ten shi il' i tecz) — 

A tinur taint les B inhirent lupahiliiits 
C e\traordinar) powers D heavy burdnn 

(14) MOBIL (mn bil i o) vac illation 
B strength C ability to more D the 
charaittrisin of hung easy to g.t along with 

\ 

<15) Rl in AM (ruu' ti lint) — A crois B j 
no I) C shilling V) nnr lts\ [ 

\ 

^Ib) MiiiLR (may t\d ) — A ont's special 
calling B a measure or norm C a wtapon 
D average 

(17) 1 \cnRYMOsL (Ilk' n mus'' — A cr- 

thusiastu B teart.il C bitter D our- 
sutet and stiitinuntil 

^^18) iNSLiN'O (en su' ing) — A surrounding j 

B fo/lou ing C moving towards D j 

running from 

^19) wQi'LFO (vah ka>' rO) — A a victor 
B a towboy C a Spanish farmtr D a 
bullpghter 

(20) ENSCONC LD (en skonst') — K sur- 

rounded B stated C honoured D settled 
comfortably 



Answers to 

"IT PAYS TO INCREASE 
YOUR WORD POWER" 

(1) Accoi ADI - A A touch on the shoul- 
der with flat of sword when knighthood 
IS bestowed Hence, recognition of spe- 
cial merit, reward, as, “It is rare for a 
lockey to receive such an aaolade ” The 
French accoler^ “embrace,” from the 
Latin ad^ “to,” and coUum^ “the neck ” 

(2) CAPRICIOUSLY— A In a changeable way, 
in a fashion guided by one's whims, as, 
“The boxing promoter acted arbitrarily 
and capriciously ” Through the Italian 
capriccto from the Latin caper ^ “a goat ” 
When you act capriciously you are cutting 
“capers” like a frisky goat 

(3) SIMULATED— A Pretended or feigned, 
as, “The field trial was staged in simu- 
lated outdoor surroundings ” 'I he Latin 
stmulatus^ from similis, “like ” 

(4) MANDATORY — B Obligatory, express- 
ing a positive command, as, “Collins 
took the mandatory count of eight ” F'rom 
the Latin mandare^ “to command ” 

(5) INTRAMURAL — D From the Latin 

mtra^ “between,” and murus, “a wall,” 
and so “within the walls ” >X hen sports 
are conducted among students or classes 
within a college or school they are con- 
fined “within the walls ' 

(6) MECCA — D* Birthplace of Moham- 
med Hence, a holy place of pilgrimage, 
or, figuratively, any place that draws 
numbers of visitors, as, “St Andrews 
is the golfers’ Mecca ” 

(7) SUCCINCTLY — A Concisely, tersely, 

as, “Povish stared in astonishment. 
‘Longest hit I ever saw,’ he said sue- 
cmctly ” 

(8) roMENi — A Stir up or excite; as, 
“Tbe goal-keepcr fomented discord in 
the team ” From the Latin fomentum, 
“a warm lotion.” 

(9) TITANS — D A race of giants in Greek 
mythology ^*encc, people of gigantic 
size, as, “They were a team of titans ^ 

(10) INESTIMABLE- -A: Invaluabic, above 


rice , as, “The trainer was rewarded for 
is inestimable services ” From the Latin 
inastimabilis^ “priceless ” 

(11) DELPHIC — C Relating to prophecies 
at Delphi, in ancient Greece Hence, 
prophetic, wise, as, “Jack Dempsev was 
supposed to w'atch him spar and then 
make the customary Delphic prediction ” 

(12) RLGRissiNG — A Declining towards a 
worse state, going backwards, as, “After 
the Savold fight some experts thought 
Marciano was regressing ” Prom the 
Latin regressus, “a going back ” 

(13) POTENTiAi iTiES — B Inherent capa- 

bilities, possibilities, capacities, as, “If 
Arsenal play up to their potentialities 
their opponents don’t stand a chance ” 
From the Latin potens^ “powerful ” 

tl4) MOBILITY — C Ability to move, as, 
“He plays better and has more mobility 
in 'the field” From the Latin mobilis, 
“movable ” 

(15) RUTH ANT — C* Shining, glittering, 
rosv-hued. as, “Kearns has a rutilant per- 
sonality ” From late Latin rutilus, “red ” 

(16) METIER — A A French borrowing 

meaning trade or profession, one’s spe- 
cial field, as, “I he indoor tourney was 
not his metier ” 

(17) LACHRYMOSi- — B From the Latin 

lacrima^ “a tear” Hence, tearful, as, 
“When Brosch finished his record round 
of 66 he received an ecstatic kiss from 
his lachrymose wife ” 

(18) ENSUING — B Following, resulting as 
a consequence, as, “1 he village team did 
well in their first season, but in the en- 
suing years they deteriorated ” Old 
French ensuivre, from the Latin tn- 
sequi^ in, “on,” and seepu^ “to follow ” 

(19) VAQUERO — B A cowboy From the 
Spanish vaca^ “cow ” 

(20) ENSCONCED— D: Settled comfort- 

ably From f/i-, “in,” and the Old 
French esconce, “hiding place ” The crowd 
was safely ensconced behind the barrier. 

V, 

Vocabulary Katit^s 

20-19 correct . . excellent 

18-16 correct ... very good 

15-12 correct .good to fair 



A poignant mctdent in the Itfe of a famous actress 


In My 

Darkest Hour-Hope 


By Helen Hayes Outstanding 

\ EVERY New Year’s Eve 
the post brings me a gift 
that IS done up in ordin- 
ary brown paper, yet is precious 
beyond price It is from Mr and 
Mrs Isaac Frantz, Brooklyn To 
understand the value of this gift 
you must know something about 
the Frant/es 

They came into my life in 1949, 
)ust after my daughter, Mary, had 
died of polio * and I was being tor 
tured by the unanswerable question 
— Why^ Mary had been so lovely 
and talented, so young and free 
from sin Why had this happened to 
her^ I could only feel that her death 
had been a cruel, senseless thing 

This was a self-destroying mood, 
for an artist needs the belief that 
life holds some beauty and mean 

* Mary Mar Arthur, daughter of actrea* 
Helen Hayes and playwright Charles Mac- 
^thur, died at the age of 1*) on the threshold 
of what promised to be a brilliant stage career 
While appearirig with her mother in a pre- 
Broadway tryout of a new pl.i> in which she 
was to make her New Vork debut, Miss Mac- 
Arthur was stricken with a fatal attack of 
.poliomyelitis 


LJ S actress of stage screen and radio 

mg I could not create lieauts or 
meaning on the stage if there was 
none within me So to save mvsclt 
I began to search for Ciod 1 read 
St Thomas Aquinas explored th( 
life and works of (»andhi, read tht 
Bible But the search failed M\ 
daughter was dead^ That brutal 
fact overwhelmed me, blinded mv 
heart 

All during this time 1 accepted no 
professional or social engagements 
and saw only mv family and most 
intimate friends But, in this sell 
imposed isolation, I became a wart 
that a Mr Isaac Frantz was tele 
phoning almost every dav, trying 
to get through to me Mv husband 
finally talked to him and reported 
“He has just lost a little boy with 
polio and he seems to think it 
would help his wife if she could 
see you ” 

“Oh, Charles — no* I have no 
strength to give her I have barel\ 
enough for mvsclf 1 simplv can't 
•do It '* 



Condensed from True Expettenre 




4 ^ 

“Of course, darling. That's what 
I told him.” 

But Isaac Frantz kept telephon- 
ing and wc finally agreed to let him 
bring his wife to our home, 

I steeled myself for the ordeal 

When they armed in their Sun- 
day best they were ill at ease, but 
they had a quiet dignity that sur- 
mounted their painful self-con- 
sciousness. Coming face to face 
with us was ob\ lousK something de- 
manding all their courage. Charles 
and I tried to put them at ease. 

Now I disco\ered the truth about 
their visit. It had been the hus- 
band's idea entirelv and he had ar- 
ranged it without his wife's knowl- 
edge. But he was so sure that a 
meeting would bring some com- 
fort to his wife that he forced him- 
self to ask It. As for his wife, she 
was appalled when she heard of 
the completed arrangements, but 
knowing how difficult it had been 
for her husband, and how impor- 
tant to him, she consented to come. 
Each was doing this for the other 
— in the moment of great need 

The Frantzes owned a tiny sta- 
tioner’s shop and obviously had to 
struggle for the necessities of lif?. 
Charles and 1 had never known any- 
thing but success, fame, luxury. 
And \et the four of us suddenly had 
one thing to share, the tragic loss of 
our children. 

Mrs. Frantz soon began talking 
about her son in a most natural 
manner, and, before I quite knew* 
what was happening, I had plunged 


January 

into a senes of stories about Mary. 
Then a glance at Charles’s surprised 
face made me realize that I was ac- 
tually mentioning her name for the 
first time since her death. I had 
taken her memory out of hiding, 
and I felt better tor it 

Then Mrs Frantz told us of her 
plans to adopt an orphan from Is- 
rael, and for a moment I was 
shocked 

“You are thinking 1 am letting 
him take mv little bo\'s placed” 
she asked gentlv, guessing my 
thoughts “No one could ever do 
that But in m\ heart there is still 
love and mavbe wisdom, too 
Should I let these dr\ up and go to 
wasted” 

“I — I don’t know, Mrs Frantz,” 

I said. 

“No, mv dear, we cannot die be- 
cause our children die I should not 
love less because the one I loved is 
gone — but more should I love be- 
cause mv heart knows the suffering 
of others ” 

While she talked I thought about 
my child. Mary had been a big and 
wonderful part of my life Even 
though that part had ended, I was 
a better human being for having 
had Mary, for having hoped and 
dreamed and worked for her. Tra- 
gic that it should have ended, but 
how much better than if it had 
never existed. ^ 

These were the things that Mrs. 
Frantz was saying, in her own way. 
These were the things that I now^ 
understood. Then I thought how 


THE RE,4DER'S DIGEST 



IN MY DARKEST HOUR--HOPEf 


^954 

ironic it was that I hadn't wanted 
Mrs. Frantz to come because I 
feared she would draw upon my 
feeble strength. It was I who drew 
upon hers! 

When they finally rose to leave, 
I realized why my search for God 
had been fruitless — I had looked in 
the wrong places. He was not to be 
found between covers of a book, but 
in the human heart. 

We never met after that. Charles 
and I invited them back a couple of 
times, but they were always busy 
with their shop aqd their new son. 


41 

I think they understood that our 
worlds were meant to touch but 
briefly. 

On every New Year’s Eve since 
then I have received from them a 
box of sweets wrapped in plain 
brown paper. Perhaps you can un- 
derstand why It IS 50 precious to me. 
For It was through these simple 
people that I learned humility, and 
God’s pattern finally came clear 
Now I know that when He afflicts 
the celebrated of the world, it is 
His way of saying, “None is privi- 
leged. In My eyes, all are equal.” 


Funny Side of the Street 

Excerpts from Arthur Lanstng's department in The American Magazine 

The Secret Celebrating his looth birthday, a man in Arcadia, Cali- 
fornia, declared he owed his longevity to being a bachelor “Marriage is 
for women only A man should have nothing to do with it.” 

Brotherhood In St Louis, Missouri, a contractor, who held up a 
$500,000 building ]ob until a robin that had built a nest on the site could 
hatch her eggs, explained: “I’m no bird lover 1 )ust respect a fellow 
contractor.” 

Always a Good Reason In Houston, Texas, a prospective juror, plead- 
ing that he couldn’t serve because he had to stay on the job to operate 
a machine, was excused after he explained to the judge, who wanted to 
know whether anyone else couldn’t operate the machine, “Sure, but 1 
don't want my boss to find it out.” 

Lights Off In Indianapolis, the manager of the Essex House, a swanky 
block of flats, discovered in horror that the first two letters in the neon 
sign over the entrance weren’t lighted, put in a rush call for an elec- 
trician. 

PS, In Jal, New Mexico, state police reported that on a traffic sign 
reading, “School Zone— Don’t kill*a child,” somebody had added in a 
childish scrawl : “Wait for a teacher.” 



The story of Sucaryl — sweeter than sugar 
and better for you if you're overweight 


The New Non-Fattening Sweet 


EC\usE Michael 
1 *^ Svcda smok' 

>*.*'*' ed a cigarette 
' vears ago in the .. 




chemistrv laborator\ • 

of the Univcrsit\ of 

Illinois, a new non- 

fattening sweet is be- ; ^ 

ing used in millions 

of homes today S\ eda 

had laid the cigarette 

down on the bench, 

and when he pur it 

back m his mouth it 

had a sweet taste ^ ’ ' 

A post-graduate in the university, 
S\eda was curious to know where 
the sweetness had come from, he 
back-tract rd on his day’s work 
Among some 20 sulphamic-acid 
compounds, which he had had on 
the bench, he finally found a dish 
of crystals which tasted extremely 
sweet. The substance" was a new 
compound he had just synthesized. 
Since he d:dn’t know exactly 
whether it had any practical value, 
Svcda merely noted the formula 
H 


Dean Jennings 

¥ and went on with his 

Syeda's chemical, 
now produced by 
Abbott Laboratories 
under the trade name 
Sucaryl, is otfenng 
r yC new pleasure and 
better health to a 
' million diabetics and 

A millions of others 

who arc o\ erwcight. 

Last year, after a 
^ long period of cau- 

tious sampling, some 
400 American food manufacturers 
hit the market with products sweet- 
'cned by Sucaryl. The results were 
spectacular Estimates indicate that 
in 1953 Americans gulped down 
some 12 nullion cases of sugar-free 
soft drinks; five million cases of 
tinned fruits packed in Sucaryl solu- 
tions; three million cases of low- 
calorie jellies and jams, and a flood 
of other sugar-free food products 
such as sweets, frozen desserts, pud- 
^ dings and baked goods. 



THE NEW NON-FATTENING SWEET 


The secret of Sucaryl is simply 
this: unlike saccharin, the coal-tar- 
derived sweetener which up to now 
has had no competition, Sucaryl can 
be baked, boiled, used in pressure 
cookers or frozen without being 
damaged or losing its sweetness It 
leaves no bitter after-taste, is fairly 
inexpensive, and can be taken in- 
definitely in large amounts without 
ill effects It IS about 30 times as 
sweet as sugar 

‘ People who have just discovered 
It sometimes react dramatically In 
the far-off desert land of Yemen, 
King Imam Ahmed heard Sucaryl 
mentioned on a “Voice of America” 
broadcast, presumably gave some 
thought to the over-stuffed members 
of his entourage and cabled an order 
for 65,000 tablets. The tablets were 
flown from New York to Aden, 
and eventually reached the King by 
camel caravan. 

The new sweetener — a substance 
scientists have been seeking ever 
since It became evident that sac- 
charin was unstable — is the result 
of monumental patience coupled 
with industrial know-how When 
Sveda left the University of Il- 
linois with his doctorate, he went 
to the Du Pont laboratories in Dela- 
ware — a place often scouted by Dr 
Ernest Volwilcr, now president of 
Abbott Laboratories. During one 
msit Dr. Volwiler heard of Sveda ’s 
neglected compound and took the 
formula back to his works. 

Sample batches were tried on 
* animals. When no alarming symp- 


^5 

toms developed, a dozen company 
volunteers began a complex senes 
of tests to determine the effect of 
Sucaryl on the liver, kidneys, stom- 
ach and other internal organs. One 
group used radio-active Sucaryl so 
that they could trace its progress 
through the body Another group 
worked with physicians in half a 
dozen cities who tested the sub- 
stance on diabetic patients. 

One of the early volunteers was 
Dr. David Jones, of Chicago. A dia- 
betic himself, Dr Jones experi- 
mented with Sucaryl in his own 
kitchen, and the recipes he and Mrs. 
Jones turned over to Abbott formed 
the nucleus of the company’s cur- 
rent recipe book. 

Research on Sucaryl continued for 
nine years before the company was 
satisfied The Federal Food and 
Drug Administration of the U.S. 
Government meanwhile spent two 
years on its own investigation. The 
Government agreed with Abbott’s 
findings that the new sweetener 
could be used without any risk 
and okayed its unrestricted sale to 
the public 

The significance of Sucaryl’s role 
in the health picture is obvious. Al- 
most all doctors firmly believe that 
obesity is one of the gravest health 
problems An insurance company’s 
survey showed that among adults 
up to the age of 64 there were 50 
per cent more deaths of fat people 
than of thin or average ones. Fat 
people are highly susceptible to dia- 
betes, heart and circulatory disturb- 



THE READERS DIGEST 


4 ^ 

ances, kidney and gall-bladder dis- 
eases and other life-shortening 
ailments. 

Dietary experts who have studied 
the problem suggest that the best 
diets are those which eliminate most 
of the sugars and starches, retaining 
the fats and proteins It has already 
been demonstrated that the substi- 
tution of Sucaryl for sugar can have 
spectacular results. There are 120 


calories, for instance, in an eight- 
ounce glass of sugar-sweetened gin- 
ger ale, but only seven calories when 
it is made with Sucaryl. A serving 
of vanilla ice-cream has 150 calories 
with sugar, only 50 with Sucaryl. 
Other dishes show similar calorie 
savings when sugar is left out. 

It is now more than a figure of 
speech to say that dieters can have 
their cake, and cat it, too 


In Case of Accident 

Excerpt from Time 

Dr. Byron Polk Stookey, Manhattan brain and spinal cord special- 
ist, has come many a case of paralysis rendered incurable by ignorant 
handling of the patient at the scene of an accident. He has given advice 
not included in any first-aid manual : 

First, “never lift the head of an injured person until he has 
told you whether he can move his legs or hands. If he cannot 
move his legs, his back is broken. If he cannot move his hands, his 
neck is broken. In both cases, the spinal cord is injured. If you lift his 
head to give him a drink of water, or fold him up to carry him, you 
inevitably grind the spinal cord between parts of the broken verteorz 
and destroy any useful remnant of the cord which may have escaped in- 
jury in the original accident.” 

When the back is broken, “gently roll the victim on to a blanket so 
that he rests face downwards. When the blanket is lifted, the victim’s 
back sags, thus removing pressure from the spinal cord.” 

When the neck is broken, “gently roll the victim on to a plank so 
that he rests face upwards, and unaer no arcumstances with the head 
tilted forward. This is the best position to prevent movement of the 
fractured cervical vertebrat.” 

If the victim must be carried by hand, four first-aiders “should form 
a tcam—one at the victim’s head, another at his feet, the others at each , 
hip. While those at the hip lift and carry, the others gently pull and 
carry. The traction at feet and head holds the vertebrae apart and prevents 
them grinding against the injured cord.” 

When the victim is unconscious,* “handle him as though his neck or 
back were broken.” 



'Constructive imagination" maizes MIT a pilot plant for leadership 


They Solve Problems 
Never Tackled Before 


By David O Woodbury 


, j GOOD MANY ycars ago I at- 
^ tended Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology, at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. We used to do a lot 
of talking in those days about the 
“frontiers of science “ and “ widen- 
ing the boundaries of scientific 
knowledge.” Recently I went back 
to see what the boys were talking 
about now, and I can report that the 
talk is the same — but the frontiers 
have changed. The old boundaries 
have been busted wide open, and 
the students and the teachers arc 
way out there in an atomic, elec- 
tronic, radar-controlled world that 
we used to dream about but never 
expected to sec. 

Part of that world, of course, was 
made by MIT graduates and MIT 
rcscarchcr-tcachcrs. For the Institute 
has long been considered one of the 
world’s finest training grounds for 
engineers. 

^here is no set policy of instruc- 
tion at *thc school, but the funda- 
mental note is research— finding out 


something new on your own. The 
teaching staff makes a constant 
search for ways to inspire construc- 
tive imagination in the students. 

Listening in on a geology class 
one day, 1 heard the instructor say, 
“Gentlemen, the concept of the ro- 
tation of the earth is a myth. What 
do you say to that»^” 

Immediately the room was full of 
snapping fingers and eager faces. A 
student leaped up and the argument 
was on. Not a word of formal lec- 
ture was spoken in that hour. But 
the earth’s rotation got a workout 
that would last a long time. 

I talked with the instructor after- 
wards. “They may not learn as 
many facts as by cramming books,’’ 
he remarked, “but they certainly 
find out how to think.” 

The next day I visited what Pro- 
fessor John Arnold calls his Creative 
Engineering Laboratory — long 
room filled with draft boards and 
strong lights. The students were 
grouped round a table littered with 

47 


Condtnud from Th* Chmjtum Sn^nce M^ntior 



4S THE READER'S DIGEST January 


fantastic sketches of creatures half 
bird, half man They were hotly 
arguing the design of a washing 
machine to be used in a world where 
people breathe methane instead of 
oxygen, and where gravity is so 
great that water would burst the 
bottom of an ordinary tub 

“This project is Arcturus IV,” 
Arnold explained “Their problem 
IS to design machines that will work 
on a distant planet I give each 
group four weeks to invent work- 
able devices — razors, motors, cars, 
cement mixers — for that special 
environment But they have to 
prove that these gadgets will go 
and that our bird-men can handle 
them.” 

The group leader joined us. 
“WeVe in trouble, Mr Arnold,” he 
said “Our anti gravity material 
makes an electric motor so big it 
won’t go in a washing machine ” 

“Sorrv,” Arnold answered “You 
can’t change gravity on the planet 
anv more than you can here But 
you might work out a super-iron 
that will make your motors 
smaller.” 

It was all they needed — a new 
avenue for their imaginations to 
follow 

“We try for two things,” Arnold 
told me. “To work in unfamiliar 
surroundings, and to solve problems 
that have never been tackled before. 
That’s wha^ they’ll have to do when 
they leave MIT.” 

Arcturus IV, now two years old, ^ 
gained a quick reputation outside 


the Institute. Several executives 
asked Arnold to try out his students 
on industrial frontier problems. 
Arnold looked their propositions 
over, chose those he thought would 
best exercise young imaginations, 
then started his students off “Treat 
the problem as it you had 
never heard of it before,” he told 
them. 

Urged on by this challenge the 
boys haye so far turned out a work- 
able design for a gas-turbine car, 
a new typewriter keyboard that 
writes twice as fast as the standard 
one, and a new kind of hospital 
room, easier to clean and service and 
more comfortable to occupy. 

Manufacturers are delighted to 
pay an average fee of $1,000 per 
project, for student salaries and ex- 
penses. If the solutions to the prob- 
lems are not immediately practi- 
cable It doesn’t matter What the 
sponsor pays for—and gets — is a 
wealth of fresh ideas and a glimpse 
at a new way to solve old dilemmas. 

As you approach Mass. Tech, it 
stands waiting for you with decep 
lively quiet dignity. Its gravelled 
paths move with geometric neatness 
round a vast sequestered courtyard. 
But the moment you are inside, the 
calm exterior is forgotten. You arc 
in a world of intense activity. 
Through hundreds of doors you see 
shirt-sleeved professors and studen*^s 
working together at desks and 
benches and machinery. The air 
pulses with incessant life, a blend of 
many sounds : the hum of motors, ^ 



THEY SOLVE PROBLEMS NEVER TACKLED BEFORE 


^954 

the rumble of power plants, the hiss 
of air and steam, the sudden peeps 
and bleats of newborn devices tried 
out for the first time 

On the hundred acres of grounds 
are 50 buildings, among them the 
great chunky structure of the Gas 
Turbine Lab, latest comer to the 
battle line of research. Soon after 
the war a group of MIT graduates, 
headed by Alfred Sloane, Jr., of 
(General Motors, put up the money 
to build a national research head- 
quarters for this young science of 
gas combustion, which includes jet 
propulsion While the Mechanical 
Engineering department of the 
school were mulling over the plans, 
a delegation of students came to 
them and asked permission to do 
the designs themselves “WeVe the 
ones who arc going to use the lab,” 
they argued plausibly 

The professors gulped. It was a 
lot of money to risk on youthful 
judgment. But why not What was 
Tech tor if not to teach by experi- 
ment? 

The boys got the job, and com- 
pleted the designs of building and 
equipment as a group-ihesis prob- 
lem. Their work was so good that 
the laboratory stands today as the 
last word in its field. 

Tech students learn the hard core 
of scientific fact because they want 
tp learn it. Courses arc tough— in 
many a dormitory room a red ban- 
ner with grey lettenng shouts: 
“Tech is Help” A typical first-year 
student's week is loaded with 40 or 


A9 

more hours of chemistry, physics, 
maths, military science and world 
history But though the emphasis is 
on science, the aim is towards mak- 
ing well-rounded individuals. A 
student is required to take on six 
hours more of his own choice, from 
a long list of courses that includes 
languages, music and the arts. 

From its modest beginnings in 
1865, in rented rooms in Boston, 
with 13 students and six professors, 
MIT has grown to a student body of 
some 5,000 men and 70 women, and 
a staff of 1,300, functioning round 
a central core of 480 professors. 

Abroad, even more than in the 
United States, Tech is looked upon 
as one of the finest scientific univer- 
sities in the world It has more for- 
eign students than any other college 
in America — 485 last year, from 67 
countries Canada heads the list, 
with Nationalist China next and 
India third. There are courses de- 
signed especially for foreign stu- 
dents. Professor Robert Harris con- 
ducts one in food technology ifi 
which students from Latin America 
can work out methods of improving 
crop yields at home 
During the war MIT became an 
emergency headquarters for ad- 
vanced war research. Out of this 
work came powder metallurgy, 
computing gun-sights for jet planes, 
practical developments in radar. An 
all-important job was to teach mili- 
tary technicians how to use radar. 

^ The Institute still docs some 
(10,000,000 worth of sponsored re- 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


50 

search every year, and so many pro- 
fessors are working on researcncs of 
their own, sponsored or unspon- 
sored, that a boy is sure to find the 
chance to break new ground. One 
student, for instance, is making 
special studies of friction for the 
American Brake Shoe Company, 
thereby earning his school fees. 
Others are assisting in the develop- 
ment of revolutionary new specto- 
graphs, with financial help from 
Army, Navy and Air Force. 

Or a student may join up with 
a teacher who is just starting to 
build his own invention commer- 
cially. There are many such small 
offspring under the wing of MIT, 
with such intriguing names as Ultra- 
sonic Corporation and Ultra-Mech- 
anisms, Incorporated Sometimes 
the students go into the new com- 
pany on graduation, to find them- 
selves in a tremendous new field. 

One such venture was High- 
Voltage Engineermg Corporation, 
started during the war round Dr. 
Robert Van de GraafT’s electrostatic 
generator (the famous “lightning 
machine”) which became a key de- 
vice in the atomic-energy pro- 
gramme, and took Van de GraafI 
out of Tech altogether. But his as- 


sistant, Dr. John Trump, stayed on, 
and he and his students have now 
come up with an important new 
cancer-fighting application of the 
machine. 

But the core of Tech’s success is 
Its power to tap the student’s hidden 
reserves of energy and imagination 
Constant contact with experiment 
gives him the habit of vigorous 
attack upon any problem — a habit 
that serves him for the rest of his life 

The result is that a lot of MIT 
graduates are not engineers at all 
Among the non-engineenng gradu- 
ates have been artists like Charles 
Woodbury (my father) and Daniel 
Chester French; bankers and econ- 
omists such as Charles Hayden, 
Roger Babson and Stuart Chase; 
public figures like Charles Edison; 
aviators such as Generals George 
Kenney and Jimmy Doolittle. 

When President Richard Morse 
of the National Research corpora- 
tion was asked by a newspaperman 
if he had graduated from MIT with 
honours, he replied, “There are 
no honour students at Tech. You 
cither graduate or you don’t.” If 
you do, a responsible job is await- 
ing you, a long way from the 
bottom of the career ladder. 


gainec 


Clouded Crystal 

Alfred Kinsey, of Kinsey Report fame, graduated from 
South Orange (New Jersey) High School in the class of 1912, year- 
book editors put this wildly unprophctic line from Hamlet under 
his picture : “Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither.” 


— Tim# 



Scientists have only recently begun to under- 
stand the chemical magic of our digestive system 

You 7' Body\s Wizardry 

with Food By J. D. Ratcliff 

HE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM IS onc A ccntury ago an American Army 
of the supreme wonders surgeon, Dr. William Beaumont, 
of the body. It is tough made direct observation into the 
and durable, completely automatic, stomach of Alexis St. Martin, a 
and so complex that its workings Canadian trapper. St. Martin had a 

are still not fully understood. gunshot wound in his stomach 

But for Its brilliant chemical which failed to heal. For eight years 
transformations, we should starve. Beaumont made observations — and 
It converts beef protein into the 
human protein needed for muscles 
and connective tissue It changes 
vegetable fats and sugars into the 
totally different fats and sugars 
essential to life. It does lo minutes 
jobs that would take hours in the 
laboratory, or perhaps could not be 
done at all. In most cases it gives a 
lifetime of faithful service and is still 
in good order at the time of death. 

Lazaro Spallanzani, 18th-century 
Italian, was one of the first to probe 
the mystenes of the digestive tract. 

He built a tiny wooden cage and 
put pieces of meat into it. T^cn he 
atpehed a string and swallowed the 
cage. From time to time he hauled it 
up from his stomach, and noted that 
the meat was gradually dissolved. 

Condensed from Famdy 





5 ^ 

came up with the first idea of the 
steps in digestion/ 

Any progress towards real under- 
standing had to await development 
of radio-active isotopes, more ad- 
vanced fat and protein chemistry, 
better knowledge of enzymes In 
addition, elaborate devices had to be 
invented : balloons to be swallowed 
and inflated in the body to measure 
contractions of various organs; deli- 
cate electrical apparatus to chart 
rhythmic contraction of muscles; 
tiny beads to be consumed with 
meals to measure passage time of 
food. In the past decade or so re- 
search men have learned more about 
the human digestive system than 
was learned in all previous history 

Digestion starts in the mouth — 
with the chemical action of the en- 
zyme ptyalin, secreted in the saliva. 
T^e body’s 20-odd enzymes are 
master chemists which promote re- 
actions without themselves taking 
part in the reactions. They are 
almost unbelievably potent. Some 
have been shown to work their wiz- 
ardry in concentrations as low as 
one part in 100 million ' 

The starch in potatoes or bread 
cannot be used by the body as^uch. 
It must be converted into sugar It 
IS pcyalin’s task to start this conver- 
sion. Chew a piece of bread for a 
minute and you will note that it be- 
gins to turn sweet. That 1$ ptyalin 
converting starch to sugar. 

When food is swallowed, things 

• See ‘The Windem in St Martin'f Stom< . 
•ch,’* The Reader's Digeat, November 1951 


lanuary 

happen rapidly. The tongue pushes 
the food into the throat. The soft 
palate rises to seal off nasal passages 
The lid-likc epiglottis drops to close " 
air passages to the lungs. Past these 
obstacles, food drops into the oesoph- 
agus, a nine-inch tube, and is pro- 
pelled down the oesophagus to the 
stomach by waves of worm-like 
muscular contractions called peri- 
stalsis (Gravity plays little part in 
this. Grazing animals swallow 
against gravity, man swallows quite 
well standing on his head ) 

The stomach has a capacity of one 
to one and a half quarts. It has a 
number of jobs. One is to churn and 
liquefy foods for the small intestine. 
For this task it produces three wavc- 
like motions a minute. 

The stomach is also a secretory 
organ — having the incredible total 
of 33 million glands* It produces 
rennet, which curdles milk, render- 
ing It more digestible, and also pro- 
duces hydrochloric acid and pepsin, 
which start the digestion of pro- 
teins. The wonder is that the stom- 
ach does not digest itself, since it is 
essentially protein. Possibly mucus 
secreted by stomach glands pro- 
vides a protective barrier. 

Water and other fluids pass 
through the stomach almost as soon 
as they are swallowed. Thin cereal 
may pass through in two or three 
hours, whereas a heavy meal may 
linger six hours. Stomach activity 
reaches a peak about two hours 
after we have eaten. 

Our padent stomachs stand an 


THE READER S DIGEST 



YOUR BODY'S WIZARDRY WITH FOOD 


J954 

enormous amount of abuse — heavy 
meals, rough and irritating foods 
and drinks. If the burden becomes 
too great the valve at the bottom of 
•the oesophagus clamps shut, and 
food collects in this tube and gives 
a sense of “fullness ” 

When the stomach has completed 
its portion of the digestive task, it 
begins to pass food through the 
pylorus The pylorus (Greek for 
“gatekeeper”) is the valve between 
the stomach and the duodenum, 
which is the first (nine-inch) seg- 
ment of the small intestine 

This small intestine is one of the 
true wonders of the human body It 
IS absolutely essential to life, yet as 
much as 15 feet of its over all length 
of 20 to 30 feet may be successfully 
removed by surgery It performs 
the ultimate task of the digesuve 
process breaking up of foods into 
their simplest components, and 
passing of these components into 
the blood for body building and re- 
pair The small intestine's actions 
are both mechanical and chemical 
It has an elaborate muscular system 
— indeed, one of the greatest prob- 
lems of abdonunal surgery is to get 
this organ to hold still. Its ring 
muscles squeeze shut to break food 
into small segments and promote 
mixing. A pendular acoon helps 
churn food, and pcnstalsis moves it 
alo^g the tract. 

If the inside of the intestine were 
smooth It would present a surface of 
only six square feet — not enough to 
ebsorb adequate food for our needs. 


S3 

But It IS rough, folded, and contains 
approximately five million “vilb”— 
minute, hairlike protuberances 
Owing to these folds and irregulari- 
ties, the inner limng of the intesune 
presents an absorptive surface of 
some 106 square feet — an area as 
large as the floor space of a small 
bedroom It takes three to four 
hours for a meal to pass through the 
small intestine Thus, the peak of 
digestive activity’ isn’t reached until 
eight or nine hours after a meal 
The small intestine may be finish 
mg breakfast while we are eating 
dinner. 

E\ery organ in the digestive tract 
must see that conditions arc nght 
for the maximum performance of its 
enzymes, the secretions which break 
up fats, proteins and carbohydrates 
into their simplest building blocks 
Stomach enzymes require an acid 
environment The intestinal en- 
zymes prefer the alkaline sidt As 
food dnbblcs through the pvlorus 
into the duodenum 11 must be ren- 
dered alkaline almost immcdiatelv 
The pint-to-a-quart of bile from the 
liver that is emptied into the duo- 
denum each day helps with this job. 
So docs the pancreatic juice deliv 
ered in almost equal volume. In ad- 
dition, the intestine itself secretes 
alkaline fluid Cunously, consider- 
able soap IS made in the intestine — 
when fattv acids and alkalis com 
bine. The sudding action of this 
soap froths up fo^s so that thev 
present the greatest amount of sur- 
face to the digestive process 



5i 


rHE READER'S DIGEST 


Thus, all foods arc broken down 
into the essentials of life* glucose, 
amino acids, fatty acids and glyccr 
me. The fatty acids and glycerine 
are picked up by the hairlike villi 
and passed into the lymphatic sys- 
tern. The glucose and amino acids 
arc passed through the intestinal 
wall, picked up by the blood and 
carried td the liver. 

Amino acids fed into the blood 
are picked up by body cells as 
needed. One combination of aminos 
will be needed to build hair cells, 
another for skin, a third to repair 
kidneys. The miracle is that each 
cell knows what it needs With dis- 
criminaung certaintv' it selects the 
precise combination of aminos 
needed for its existence. 

When the small intestine has 
completed its work, liquid wastes 
pass into the five-and-a-half-foot 
large intestine The chief job of this 


organ is to extract water and solidi- 
fy wastes. The large intestine is a 
sluggish organ, taking ten to 20 
hours to perform its tasks. It has an 
enormous bacterial population 
These bacteria manufacture some 
vitamins, and decompose proteins 
that may have escaped digestion 

The final body wastes contain 
virtually no useful food remnants— / ^ 
the body being such an eificient^ 
machine that it utilizes nearly every 
thing that is eaten. Wastes consist \ 
mainly of dead bacteria, cells shed 
by the intestines, mucus and small 
amounts of indigestible cellulose— 
such as celery fibres, fruit peel or 
pips 

From start to finish in the diges 
tivc process, bafflingly complex or- 
gans must work m perfect harmony 
It is not surprising that such a svs 
tern gives occasional trouble It is a 
wonder that it works at all 


Daughter Knows Best 

DAUGHTER kncw that if she was to start college m the autumn she 
would have to earn some money during the summer, but it was almost 
graduation time and she still hadn’t begun to look for a job Finally I 
asked her what she was waiung for. 

“Mum,” she beamed, “Fve got a fabulous plan I'll take care of the 
house this summer I'll bet I can do everything you do and still be 
finished at noon, so I can spend the afternoons at the beach ” 

“But that won’t earn you any money,” I objected. 

“Oh, I’ve thought of that. I found an ad in the paper last night An 
estate agent is looking for an executive secretary You’ve had secretarial 
experience, and they’d certainly rather hire an older woman than a 
17-ycar-old. Besides, they’ll pay you more. 

“But you only need to give me what I’d earn if I were working there,” 
she adem magnanimously “You c^an keep the rest for yourself 1 ” 

--^Contributed by Sylvia Zuiktr 




Heart-warmtng romance and humour tn 
the story of an American newspaper- 
woman who unexpectedly found herself a 


Mexican’s bride 

Ml) Heart 
Lies South 


'A 



; wj\n ^fc^Rs or so dgo, when 
mv city editor sent me to 
Mexico on a newspaper assignment, 
the Monterrey Chamber of Com- 
merce dispatched a young public 
relations man to conduct me across 
the border with the dignity due to 
the paper I represented The cmis- 
saiy, Luis Trevino, met me at the 
border town of Laredo, Texas 7\ill 
and spare, with large, sad black 
eyes,, curly hair, a fine beak of a 
nose, and a sparse black moustache, 
he was, he told me later, “the vil- 
lain type.” Although he bowed 
Politely when we met, he was tired 
and hot and looked at the lady who 
was to be his charge with scant in- 
terest. For my part, how was I to 


know that 1 was meeting mv future 
husband^ 

Luis spoke excellent English His 
father was a civil engineer who had 
worked for a time in the United 
States, and Luis had gone to school 
in Texas and Indiana He eventually 
dominated English in all but two 
particulars to this dav he “cuffs” 
when he has a cold, and, owing to 
the negligence of his wife, the 
“coughs” of his shuts are frequently 
frayed. 

Wc set out for Monterrey in a 
limousine provided by the Chamber 
of Commerce. I had my hair tied up 
in a scarf and was wearing a large 
black hat and sunglasses. Late in 
the afternoon, as tht long violet 


Condensed from the hook 



^6 THE READER*S DlCtESl Ja^iuAry 


shadows crept across the plain, I 
took ofT my hat. 

“Ah,” breathed Luis, 

I undid the scarf. 

“So^” remarked Luis. 

I took off the dark glasses. 

“Wonderful,” he decided, aloud 
He looked at me soulfully 

“Shall 1 sing \ou a song about 
lovc^” he asked 

And he sang all the way to 
Monterrey 

As I WENT about gathering ma 
tcrial for my articles, Luis arranged 
interviews and, when my limited 
Spanish made it necessary, inter 
preted for me. I should have realized 
that his interest was more than rou- 
tine when he asked me to go danc- 
ing with him, and told me 1 would 
meet his mother 

That evening he called for me at 
my hotel and led me out to where a 
lady sat in a car She was, I thought, 
in early nuddle age; in truth, she 
had just turned 6o. She was very 
plump and firm, and an incredibly 
small fat hand manipulated her fan 
Around her shoulders was a dark 
lace scarf. 

^^Mamacttay' said Luis, using the 
affectionate diminutive, “this is 
Eleesabet.” 

Large eyes, wise and sparkling, 
looked me over slowly. 

“I do not spik Ecngleesh,” she 
offered at last in a deep contralto. 

In my careful Spanish I said that 
I was delighted to meet her, and 
Mack brows arched with surprise 


and pleasure. She turned on Luis 
and gave him a short tongue lash- 
ing, fanning herself rapidly Evi- 
dently he hadn’t told her that the 
“mees” knew Spanish. She made a 
place for me in the car and asked 
me in rapid succession my father’s 
name and age, my mother’s name 
and age, where I had studied 
Spanish and if it were true that 
Chile Tem-play (Shirley Temple) 
was really a dwarf 

We deposited Marnacita at a 
cinema, where a nephew was await- 
ing her, and then went dancing 
with an engaged couple, friends of 
Luis’s 1 did not realize it but the 
die had been cast. Taking a girl to 
dance in company with an engaged 
couple — that means something 
serious ^ 

Next day, phones rang in Monte 
rrey, the news went round Only 1 
was in the dark 

That afternoon I was taken to call 
formally on Marnacita. While Luis 
played the piano, Marnacita whis- 
pered to me. “Luis is very good. 
Noble. I never had any problems 
with him. Just the piano, to sing 
with, this IS his vice ” 

In the evening Luis called on me 
accompanied by his elder brother, 
Ernesto We seemed to have little to 
talk about. But this call was part of 
the pattern Luis was faithfully fol- 
lowing, though I did not know ’t. 
In the absence of his father, who 
was away on business, the eldest 
brother must meet Eleesabet. 

The day I took the train for Mex- 



MY HEART LIES SOUTH 


57 


ICO City, Luis saw me off. He was 
speechless. I wondered why I felt so 
sad. 

About 15 minutes after the tram 
had pulled out it slowed down and 
stopped, and suddenly Luis burst 
into the coach like a tornado He 
had driven madly and flagged the 
train He kissed me thoroughl), and 
I thought in the midst of a turmoil 
of emotion, “Why, it’s impossible* 
r\e oni\ known him a week*” 

Luis got off the train, still having 
said nothing, but he looked very 
happy as he wa\efl gocxl-byc. 

In his letters, Luis made it clear 
* that 1 was engaged to him A year 
lattr we were married in California, 
and returned to Monterrey to live. 

How many times 1 was to dance 
in moonlit gardens with Luis, how 
often I would tell Mamacita the 
true age of the stars of the screen * 
Imperceptibly, a place at first new 
and strange takes on a beloved 
familiarity There comes a time 
when unconsciously one’s thoughts 
grow into a new design, and sud- 
denly all that was quaint and exotic 
falls into place Before long Monte- 
rrey really became “home.” 

There are modern homes in 
Monterrey, but I had fallen in love 
with Mamacita's old-fashioned 
Mexican house and 1 wanted a 
patio, barred windows and tiled 
floors. At last we found a little 
house which had everything I had 
l^cen looking for. But marriage to a 
Ij|([cxican who holds to the old con- 


ventions brought several things J 
had not been looking for. 

During my first months as a bride 
I was busy learning the Mexican 
way of running a household. The 
Mexican husband of the old school 
turns over to his wife a carefully 
calculated sum, the daily gasto, for 
the purchase of food. At first my 
gaslo was three pesos a day. Because 
of my inexperience with Mexican 
ways I barely made ends meet and 
was constantly in a tearful turmoil. 
What upset Luis was that I could 
not bargain. 

The market men soon sized me 
up. The Mexicans simply pretended 
not to understand my Spanish, or 
began at a price several times higher 
than they were willing to settle for, 
and allowed me to beat them down 
a little The Chinese fruit and vege- 
table men confused me by saying 
my lines as well as their own. 

“How much arc string beans.?” I 
would ask. 

“Fifty centavos. Very expensive. 
The man must be crazy,” they 
would reply. 

There was nothing to do but pay 
the 50 centavos or slink away. 

Luis struggled to teach me the 
proper procedure. The strongest les- 
son was administered when I came 
home with the pineapple. 

I had bought the blasted thing 
(after gritting my teeth and bargain- 
ing at length) for a peso. When 
Luis learned this he struck his brow 
^ith the flat of his hand (a gesture 
which means “God help us all*”). 



5S 

“They take advantage of your 
blonde hair,” he said. “They think 
you are a tourist! Come!” 

He strode into the market, with 
me a few abashed yards behind him. 
He went to the fruit stall and 
looked round carefully, then 
pushed a few pineapples with a 
disdainful finger. 

The vendor hurried over and said 
sharply, “Don’t touch, if you don’t 
intend to buy.” 

“You’ve got fruit that ought to 
be condemned,” snapped Luis. “I’ll 
have to tell the inspector.” 

“What? Those beautiful pine- 
apples ! They’re worth one peso and 
20 centavos apiece I ” 

Luis gave a disgusted look and 
started away. The vendor ran after 
him with a lower offer. And so it 
went until at last Luis bought two 
pineapples for 40 centavos each and 
he and the vendor parted full of 
mutual admiration. 

After that display of virtuosity I 
gave up and Luis turned the gasto 
over to the cook. 

As time went by we began to need 
small household necessities. I found 
that I was expected to wheedle the 
money for each purchase when the 
moment seemed propitious, by coax- 
ing and pleading and kissing. Mexi- 
can women like to go through this 
little formality, Mexican men adore 
the game. But I was a hard-headed 
foreigner. I stamped my foot and 
demanded an allowance. Luis ex- 
plained that this was not sensible^ 
I might buy more than I needed. 


January 

“You treat me as if I had been 
locked up all my life like a Mexican 
girl ! ” I argued. 

“I am not a rich Amencan ! ” he 
.countered. Then he shouted the 
worst epithet he could think of: 
“You want to be independent^' 

In tears, I went to Mamacita 
with my talc of woe. She laughed 
heartily, then said, “I feex.” She 
wrote out a long list of small pur- 
chases, and then briefed me. 

I bought the items, one by one, 
and signed a vale (a sort of lOU) 
for each, directing the collector to 
Luis’s office. All afternoon a parade 
of boys with vales marched in to 
sec Luis; he was kept busy paying 
for two quinine tablets, half a dozen 
hooks and eyes, one yard of white 
tape, and $0 on. 

That evening he announced he 
would give me an allowance. Later, 
when I had learned all the weapons 
of bargaining — eyebrow lifting, eyes 
rolled heavenward, false starts away 
— I got the gasto back. 

A MONTH after Luis and I were 
married, my sistcr-in-law Adcla 
phoned me. 

“Well, any news?” she inquired 
eagerly. 

“Why . . . no,” I said, wondering 
what she meant. 

“Oh, too bad.” Her low voice 
throbbed with sympathy. 

That afternoon Mamacita, Aunt 
Rosa and sistcr-in-law Angclita 
came to visit me. They asked re- 
peatedly how I felt. 


THE READER'S DIGEST 



MY HEART UES SOUTH 


t954 

“Why, I fed wonderful 

The three faces fell. 

“Not even a little nausea in the 
morning — or anything?” 

At last I caught on. “No, I’m 
fine,” I explained. 

I was furious at this avid interest 
in my intimate affairs. I vowed that 
when I did have some “news” wild 
horses wouldn’t drag it out of me. 

But soon I learned that in Mexico 
being pregnant has all sorts of 
advantages. The more inflated you 
arc, the more you arc cherished. 
You wear your stomach promi- 
nently forward with a certain arro- 
gance, and loving friends may stop 
you in the street to feel the baby 
leaping about. 

There is a gesture which means 
you are expecting. With the right 
hand you stroke the air about two 
feet in front of your waistline. This 
IS constantly employed by ladies 
who cannot as yet prove anything by 
measurements A proud prospective 
father presents you to friends, 
makes the gesture and points at 
you You arc immediately kissed 
by all the envious females present. 

Two months went by. Adda 
phoned faithfully No news. Three 
months. Four. Mamacita bought 
Luis a tonic and Adda recom- 
mended that I take corn gruel in 
the mornings. A few months later 
whCn I discovered that there was 
going to be “news” I forgot all 
about being secretive; I couldn’t go 
fast enough to ace Mamacita and 
proudly make the special gesture. 


59 

My servants had drifted away 
after a few months, giving vague 
excuses. But when it became ap 
parent that there was going to be an 
heir, they all came back eagerly — 
smiling, patting my protuberance 
affectionately — reassured that I 
wasn’t one of those crazy foreign 
women who didn’t want children. 
“The house was too quiet, too sad,” 
they told me. “But now that there 
will be a mno .” Their eyes shone 
with anticipation. 

My first son, baptized Luis 
Federico, was called Guicho for 
short He was a beautiful baby, pink 
as a rose, and he had pale golden 
hair Mamacita reported proudly to 
all her friends and relatives that the 
little gringo was the most angelic- 
appearing child she had ever seen, 

I scrupulously followed the advice 
of the American child-care books, 
which told me I mustn’t cuddle the 
baby, that he must not be picked 
up every time he cried. Sometimes 
when Adela came to see me, she 
would find Guicho in his crib and 
my cat in my arms. This would 
almost cause her death of rage. 

“Why haven’t you got th^ baby 
on your lap?” 

“The book says not to. And the 
book was written by the United 
States Government.” 

“Do you mean to say people can’t 
cuddle their babies in the United 
States ? They are ripe for a revolu- 
tion,” muttered Adela darkly. 

She was right, of course; the 



bo 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


January 


specialists have now reversed them- 
selves on baby care. But I stuck to 
the rules with self-righteous firmness 
— until Guicho began the unholy 
circus of teething. 

I hadn’t slept for two nights The 
baby was feverish, and cried con- 
stantly. At this point Luis’s father 
dropped in to call He took one look 
at the child’s red, angrv face, and at 
the dark bags under mv eyes, then 
rushed out. In a short time he was 
back with a bottle of a clear liquid 
in which he soaked a piece of cot- 
ton-wool. He rubbed this on the 
baby’s gums Instantly there was a 
heavenly silence. 

“You do this now and again, and 
don’t be afraid if a few drops slide 
down his throat,” he told me. 

“What IS It?” 

“It’s mescal, a kind of cactus 
brandy. It will numb the little 
gums and make him feel a pleasant 
glow. And, ht]ita (little daughter), 
take a litde slug yourself,” 

My second child, Enrique (or 
Wicky), had thick straight black 
hair right down to his eyebrows, 
a ferocious expression on his little 
apple-round face, and he was the 
colour of ketchup. Mamacita 
snatched up the tiny beet-red crea- 
ture with a sigh of ecstasy. 

“The first one is pretty,” she said, 
“but this one is gorgeous!*' 

Mexican women have their fav- 
ourite emotions, and these did not 
always coincide with my Anglo- 


Saxon preferences. I learned this 
first when Luis’s brother Roberto 
and his wife, Beatriz, became in- 
volved in an emotional crisis. 

Beatriz had been arranging Ro- 
berto’s bureau drawers and she 
came across a w'oman’s glove It was 
not hers When Roberto came 
home, she snatched the cigar out of 
his mouth and screamed that she 
was leasing him, that instant* And 
she went home to her mother 
After the row boiled down to the 
fact that she had found the glove, 
Roberto had to get Mamacita as 
witness that the glove was hers, 
that she must have left it in the car 
one dav and he had forgotten to 
return it Mamacita brought the 
mate of the glo\e, to clinch things. 
Then Beatriz forgave Roberto, and 
fell on his neck weeping 
I talked this over with Mamacita, 
who hadn’t been a bit surprised. 

“But, Mamacita,” I gasped, “it 
is dreadful to live this way Don’t 
Mexican husbands and wives trust 
each other at all?” 

“Trusting is very nice and calm.” 
said Mamacita-, taking up her cro- 
cheting, “but not so much fun!”. 

“Mamacita,” I said, hesitating a 
bit, “don’t try to tell me you were 
ever so jealous*” 

“I was much worse,” she con- 
fided. “Once I followed my hus- 
band all day in a hired carriage. It 
cost me 100 pesos.” 

“And what did you find out.?” 
“That he had been telling me the 
truth.” She threw her head back 



MY HEART LIES SOUTH 


6i 


and laughed heartily. I ex- 

perienced all the emotions that day 
in the carriage 

“But I don’t want to be this way, 
Mamacita,” I told her. “In the 
United States, it is true, wc feci 
jealous at times But we’re ashamed 
to show it. Here, e\cn when )ou arc 
just a little bit jealous, you exag- 
gerate it^” 

She leaned towards me confiden- 
tially. “But of course, Jiijita One 
must cxaggei ale a little The home 
is built round duties and emotions. 
The duties, an\bodv can take care 
of them Hie emotions, these are 
more delicate One must handle 
them like an aitist Jealousv pleases 
the men \ci\ mudi, hijitj You 
have no idea how important it 
makes them feel Like R(^lK‘rto and 
Beatrix Robcito has had such a 
crisis in the nerves, such a drama 
about this glove, that Beatrix will 
have no fears that he may seek 
excitement anywhere else for a long 
time.’’ 

Nearly 50 years of successful 
marriage sparkled in Mamacita’s 
big black eyes, as she smiled and 
dimpled at me Then she said, 
“That IS whw I hid my glove in 
Roberto’s bureau drawer.” 

One time when I was at the 
house of m( friend Margarita, her 
brother, who had been in the United 
States, said . “American women are 
wonderful companions to their 
. men.” 

“Well,” commented Margarita 


tartly, “thank God we still have two 
sexes in Mexico 

“But, Margarita,” he protested, 
“you do not understand. This 
friendliness between men and wo- 
men IS part of American life.” 

“If I were to meet a man who 
wanted me to be friends with him, 

I would never speak to him again 
exploded Margarita, in outraged 
womanhood “Either he is lying 
and intends to trick me later or he 
is not a maiU Friends indeed •” 
“You refuse to understand F* the 
brother shouted “In the United 
States people believe in equality 
between the sexes F' 

“What an absurd idea,” scoffed 
Margarita. “Everybody knows the 
w^oman is worth ten of every man, 
in everything except fighting and 
plaving poker And what woman 
WMiits to go to war or plav poker 
“It is written in the lawbooks that 
women may have the same rights as 
men,” said the brother. 

“Oh, men are so impractical,” 
answered Margarita impaticntlv 
“They never see further than their 
noses. Anv woman worth her salt 
can make her mentolk love her so 
dcarlv that they will do more for 
her than the law says thev must 
And It IS much more agreeable.” 

The idea in Mexico is that when 
women are foolish enough to make 
themselves independent nobody will 
look after them any more, and it is 
nicer to be looked after. No matter 
' how brave the Mexican girl is (and 
I have seen one snatch off her shoe 



62 


THE READER’S DIGEST 


and go after a rattlesnake with it), 
she will melt down into feminine 
frailty the minute a pair of trousers 
appears on the horizon. 

Mamacita explained this to me. 

“Men are not very brave, Elee- 
sabet,” she told me, “or God would 
have arranged that they bear the 
children. So it is up to the woman 
to make them practise being valiant, 
otherwise they would all drink 
themselves to death or have heart 
attacks whenever there was trouble. 
So let them, every day, do some- 
thing that strengthens their will 
against pain or danger, it is good for 
them. And also.’* she added sagely, 
“the man who performs a brave act 
before a lady will love her very 
much, for she has seen him do it ” 

One of the sweetest qualities of 
the Mexican family is the devotion 
to the old. In countless homes I 
found, pridefully displayed like a 
jewel in a case, an old lady or gen- 
tleman in the 80s. This is Grand- 
father or Grandmother, Great-Aunt 
or perhaps just somebody’s god- 
father. It is unheard of that any 
person who has any connection with 
the family should be left alone, sad 
and bewildered, when the shadows 
of life arc descending. The old are 
given the best of everything, warm 
affection and deference. 

Even more shocking to Mexicans 
than sending one’s vteptos (old ones) 
off to homes for the aged would be 
to send them to hospitals or sana- 
toriums when they become senile or 


even slighdy demented. No, this is 
when they need love and under- 
standing By their presence in the 
home, young children learn that we 
all grow old and feeble and foolish. 
And they are taught compassion 
and patience. 

When I am aged and tiresome, 
and ring my bell for attention all 
day, and throw down my water 
glass in a temper, my Mexican sons 
will consult in soft voices But they 
will be saying, '"Pohrecita de Mama- 
ata (poor little Mamma), she is ner- 
vous today You run out and buy 
her some brandied cherries and I’ll 
read her a whodunit ” Thev will 
not be saving, “Do you think we 
could afford to rent her a room in 
the Shady Rest Home for Trouble- 
some Old Ladies^” 

Yes, in many ways, I have be- 
come thoroughly Mexican. 

An Ameiican friend visited me, 
and for a time triecT to share the life 
that had become mine She thought 
It incredible that 1 had become part 
of the pattern of a life so alien to her. 
Once she listened open-mouthed 
while I answered the phone. 

I asked, as 1$ cus- 
tomary, and, when the voice wanted 
to know who was speaking, I 
answered, of course, “Elcesabet.” 

My friend said, “Well, that docs 
It. You can’t even pronounce your 
own name any more.” 

por Dtosy' I answered, 
which IS good Mexican custom, too. 
It means, “As God wills.” 



A 'lAhem itiUold of the wtar 



By John Gunther Author of “Inside Europe,” “Inside Asia,” etc 


O NE DAY IN 1941 an American 
colonel representing the then 
top-secret atomic project walked 
into the New York office of a Bel- 
gian mine operator named Edgar 
Sengicr, and asked if Sengier could 
help America to get some uranium 
ore from the Belgian Congo The 
request, the officer said, was vital to 
the Allied cause. 

Monsieur Sengier listened politely, 
and asked to sec the colonel’s cre- 
dentials. When he was satisfied, he 
said that, yes, he would be able to 
deliver a sizeable quantity of the 
precious ore. When did the colonel 
need it? 

“We need it at once,” the colonel 
said. “I realize that’s impossible, of 
course.” 

“On the contrary,” Sengier said. 
“The ore is here in New York at 
thte moment. One thousand tons of 
it. I have been waiting for you ” 
And thereby hangs a hitherto 
untold drama of the war. . . . 


Edgar Sengier is one of the most 
important unknown men of our 
time. This anonymity is remarkable 
because, without Sengicr, there 
would have been no atomic bomb — 
at least not in the summer of 1945, 
when the Hiroshima and Nagasaki 
bombs ended the war against Japan. 
Not only did Sengicr produce the 
deadly and essential uranium for 
those first atomic bombs but, until 
comparatively recently, every atomic 
bomb made in the United States, 
every one tested in Nevada or the 
South Pacific has been made out of 
uranium from the mine his com- 
pany operates in the Congo. 

Edgar Sengier’s story has never 
been written before — for several 
reasons. First, Sengicr ’s own sclf- 
cffaccmcnt. Recently 1 had dinner 
with him in Pans. When the even- 
ing was over, he said, “If you arc 
going to write about me, try to keep 
me out of It ” He meant, of course, 
that I shouldn’t stress his personal 



t)4 

importance, or make him sound 
vain, which he isn’t. The second 
difficulty IS security. Many details 
about Con^o uranium are still top- 
secret If It were not for security, 
Sengier might long since have been 
a household name. 

Sengier is a Belgian engineer, fin- 
ancier and captain of industry, aged 
73. Quite apart from his connection 
with the bomb, he is one ot the most 
powerful men in the world He is 
chairman of the executive com- 
mittee of the Union Miniere (iu 
Haut-Katanga High Katanga, in 
the south-eastern Coflgo, has uran- 
ium and vast reserves of the richest 
copper ore on earth The Mining 
Union does an annual business of 
^70,000,000, and produces seven per 
cent of the world's copper, 80 per 
cent of its cobalt and five per cent 
of Its zinc, as well as manv other 
minerals. It is the mam wheel in 
the Soaete Gen er ale de Belgique, a 
holding compan\ which combines 
enormous financial and industrial 
power. 

The General ScKietv, together 
with four other large Belgian finan- 
cial groups, has immense influence 
in the economic life of the C'ongo, 
and has indirect political influence 
as well. If one wished to ovcrsim- 
plif)', one could say that the Mining 
Union sparks the ^^icneral Society, 
which in turn runs the Congo 
Hence, Edgar Sengier, who runs 
the Mining Union, runs the Congo. 
He would deny this, though. He 
would say that the Belgian people. 


January 

electing their own government, run 
the Congo. 

I began hearing about Sengier 
when, in preparation for a book on 
Africa, I started to do research on 
the Congo. I discovered that he was 
born in Belgium, and was educated 
to be an engineer He spent five 
years in China with a Bjelgian com 
pany that had tramway concessions 
there. He was advenluious, tough, 
willing to take responsibility and 
extremely bright When he was 
about 30 years old, he decided to 
move on to Africa, and that con- 
tinent has played a great role in his 
life ever since 

The Mining Union was founded 
in 1906 The Cbngo itself became a 
Belgian colony in 1908 Elisabeth- 
villc, capital of the Katanga region, 
was founded in 1910 Sengier ar- 
rived there in i9ir He, the Mining 
Union, Elisabeth ville and the Congo 
Itself have all grown up together. 

In the museum at Elisabcthville 
I saw a block of pitchblende, uran- 
ium ore, on display As big as a pig. 
Its colour was black and gold, and it 
looked as if it were covered with a 
green scum It came from Shinko- 
lobwc, which is the mine, and a sign 
said “ ittention Bloc radioactij^** 
Photographers arc warned not to 
get too close, or the film in their 
cameras will be spoiled. 

Sengier had been producing pir^h- 
blende from the Shinkolobwc since 
1921. But in those days no one 
thought the uranium contained in 
the ore had any value. All the in- 


THE READERS DIGEST 



MYSTERY MAN OF THE A-BOMB 


t954 

tcrcst then was in radium. In 1938, 
however, things began to happen 
Sengicr was approached in circum- 
stances of the utmost secrecy and 
urgency by a British physicist who 
told him of the work German scien- 
tists were doing in the field of 
atomic fission, and of the possibility 
that an atomic bomb might be made 
out of uranium It was of the most 
critical importance, he said, that no 
uranium should get into enemy 
hands 

Sengier, on his own responsibility, 
then arranged for the shipment of 
more than i,o(X) tons of rich pitch- 
blende ore from the Congo to the 
United States. “I did this,” he told 
me, “without telling anything to 
anybody ” 

U’hc ore reached America in 1940, 
and was stored in steel drums m a 
New York warehouse. Between its 
arrival and its eventual use hv the 
atom-bomb project, however, some 
quaint episodes occurred 

Sengici, in dead secreev, an- 
nounced to the proper American 
authorities that the uranium was 
there The State Department was so 
impressed that it wanted to mo\e 
the deadly stufT to bort Knox for 
safekeeping But there wms much 
delay, and a year passed before the 
American Ciovernmcnt acted to take 
advantage of Sengicr’s foresight. B\ 
this^ time (such was the veil ot 


65 

secrecy) some people had apparently 
forgotten — or had never known — 
where the ore actually was. 

Then in 1941 the American colo- 
nel paid his historic call on Sengier 
in his New York office. Within an 
hour the officer walked out with a 
memorandum quickly drawn up on 
a piece of yellow paper, and signed 
by Sengier The uranium essential 
to the success of the atomic project 
was now the property of the United 
States. 

When Sengier visited the United 
States in 1946, General Leslie 
Groves, in President Truman’s pres- 
ence, awarded him the Medal for 
Merit. He is one of the few non- 
American civilians to receive this 
esteemed honour, and naturally he 
IS proud of It The reason for the be- 
stowal was kept secret, the record 
wa* impounded in the White 
House. The language of the cita- 
tion IS purposely not specific I have 
seen the text it merelv mentions 
Edgar Scngicr’s “wartime services 
in the realm ot raw materials ” 

Sengier has also been made a 
C'ommandcr of the British Empire 
and a C hcvalier of the brench 
Legion of blonour. Although he is 
not much impressed b\ honours, 
there IS one thing of which he is 
indeed proud A new ore (composed 
of uranium, vanadium and copper) 
was reccntlv named scngierite 


^ SNORT i^si and surest way to live* with honour in the world is to be 

^ in reality what wc appear to be 


—Socrates 




the Kamikaze Suicide Missions 


By Capt Rikihci Inoguchi and Comdr. Tadashi Naka]ima, 

Former Imperial jjpanese Nav} 

Translated by Comdr Masataka Chihaya and Roger Pineau 


On October ly, ^944, taken the Philippines weie in Japanese hands, 
an American joice landed at the entiance to Leyte Gulf Soon mote than 
too U S carrier planes swatmed over taigets from Luzon to Mindanao 
The Japanese fleet had sufleted ovet whelming defeat in the Battle of 
the Philippine Sea, naval air stiength was at a low ebb Everyone was 
aware that it would ta/{e a mnacle to save the Japanese Empire from 
disaster It was then that the desperate kamikaze idea was born 


\ October 19, as dusk settled 
over Mabalacat Field, Luzon 
base of the 201st Japanese Air 
Group, a black sedan drew up in 
front of the command post and 
Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi stepped 
out. Commander of the First Air 
Fleet, he was regarded as the forc^ 
66 


most exponent of aerial warfare. 
Now he summoned the zoist’s staff 
officers into immediate conference 
and said . 

“The situation is so gra\e that 
the fate of the Empire depends on 
the outcome of the Sho operation. 
\Sho — Victory — was the ironic 


Condensed from Untied State$ Naval Institute Proceedings 



THE STORY OF THE KAMIKAZE SUICIDE MISSIONS 


name which Tokyo gave to the op- 
eration designed to defend the Phil- 
ippines against recapture.] A naval 
force under Admiral Kurita is to 
penetrate Leyte Gulf and there 
annihil^ite enemy surface units. The 
First Air Fleet has been designated 
to support that mission by render- 
ing enemy carriers ineffective for 
at least one week But our position is 
such that we can no longer win by 
adhering to conventional methods 
of warfare In my opinion, the 
enemy can be stopped only by ciash- 
diving on then carrier flight decl{s 
with Zcio flghteis carrying 2 ^ 0 - 
kilo g) am me bomb^'' 

The listeners were electrified bv 
the AdmiraTs words as his sharp 
eves surveved the crowded room 
It was apparent that the purpose 
of his visit was to inspire suicide 
attacks 

When Admiral Ohnishi had fin- 
ished, Commander Tamai, the 
201 St's cYccutnc officer, asked per- 
mission to consult with his squadron 
leaders on a mattci so gra\c <«s this 
He was confident that most of his 
pilots would dedicate themselves as 
human missiles when thev heaid of 
the plan “Thev said little," he re 
ported later, “but their eyes spoke 
cloquentlv of a willingness to die 
for their country." All but two 
volunteered. 

It was decided that Lt 'V'likio 
Seki should lead the attack 1 Ic wms 
a man of outstanding character and 
•ability, a graduate of the Naval 
Academy at Eta Jima. When told 


67 

of the assignment by Commander 
Tamai, Seki leaned forward at the 
table, supporting his head in his 
hands, his eyes closed The young 
officer had been married just before 
leaving the homeland. For several 
seconds he sat motionless except for 
the tightening of his clenched fists 
Then, raising his head, he smoothed 
back his hair and spoke in a clear, 
quiet voice “Please do appoint me 
to lead the attack." 

Shortly after sunrise on October 
20 Admiral Ohnishi summoned the 
24 kamikaze (divine wnnd) pilots 
and addressed them, his voice shak- 
ing with emotion “Japan faces a 
terrible crisis The salvation of our 
country is beyond the power of 
ministers, the General Staff and 
lowly unit commanders like mvsclf 
It IS now up to spirited voting men 
such as you ' Tears came to his eves 
as he concluded “I ask vou to do 
vour utmost and wish you success " 

Similar iCLruiting ot kamikaze 
pilots was raking place at oth<"r air 
bases At C\bu, all hands assembled 
at 6 p m on October 20 “Each vol 
untcer tor the ‘spccial-attiLk' corps," 
said the commanding officer, “will 
write his name and rank on a piece 
ot paper ii'd insert it m an envelope 
and seal ir F ikIosc a blank paper if 
vou do not wish to vtilunteer You 
have three hours in which to give 
iFie matter serious consideration." 

At nine o’clock sharp the senior 
pettv c^fficcr pilot delivered an en- 
*v elope to the commander's quarters 
Inside weie more than 20 signed 



68 

pieces of paper; only two were 
blank. 

On October 25 the first successful 
kamikaze-unit attack was carried 
out; SIX planes took off at dawn 
from Davao in southern Mindanao 
and damaged at least three enemy 
escort carriers. 

That same morning Lieutenant 
Seki also led a successful attack from 
Mabalacat. One of the four escort- 
ing pilots furnished a report of the 
action: “Sighting an enemy force 
of four carriers and six other ships. 
Lieutenant Seki dived headlong into 
one of the carriers, which he 
rammed successtullv A colleague 
crashed into the same ship, trom 
v\hich there arose a great column 
of smoke. Successful hits were also 
scored bv two more pilots, one on 
another flat-top, the other on a light 
cruiser.” 

News of the kamikaze successes 
flashed throughout the naw A total 
of 93 fighters and 57 bombers had 
been flown in conventional attacks 
that dav, inflicting no damage oa 
the enemv The superujritv ot the 
suicide .ittacks was manifest 

Admiral Ohnishi was convinced 
that further emplov merit of these 
inhuman tactics was unavoidable 
He pressed this opinion \"kc- 
Admiral Fukudome, Linnmander- 
in-chief ot the Second Air Fleet 
“Nothing 'horl ot all out use of 
special attacks can save us It is time 
for \our dir fleet to adopt these 
tactics.” 

Thus the kamikaze tactics were 


January 

given full play, and young men vol- 
unteered freely for the opportunity 
to add to the intensity of the “di- 
vine wind “ Reinforcements poured 
out from the homeland eager to take 
their turn in crashing upon enemy 
warships 

Time was running out, however. 
Dav bv dav the situation round 
Leyte Island became more hopeless. 
As the tempo of the invasion in- 
creased, so did the intensitv and 
number of kamikaze attacks But 
the supplv of planes was dwindling, 
and on Januarv 5 the last large- 
scale suicide attack from a Philip- 
pine base was launched Fifteen 
fighter-bombers struck the invasion 
forces at Lingaven (iulf, damaging 
one cruiser and four trans[x.>rts * 

Further Japanese defeats follow'cd 
quicklv after the fail of the Philip- 
pines. The mights enemv invaded 
Iwo Jima in February 1945 and 
Okinawa m April, trapping Japan 
in a grip of death This inspired 
kamikaze tactics on an unprecc 
dented scale-even training planes 
were mobilized 

Now a new suicide weapon was 
proposed A rocket powered 1,800- 
kilogranme missile would be at- 
laclicd to a “mother” bomber 
Within sight of the targ( t the mis- 
sile would be released, with a volun- 

• Amcrujn N.i\ utounf* of the Itati'f of 
I C»ulf %h«»\ th it thr C.innC.i/f rflt.Kkn 

Acre ippirtntlv (fu re rfUitivr ih m thr J ipa- 
mw thrmncKr«i rtiih/«d Nor oru but two 
(iui«rra ucrc .la u»ll m cKort 

<.irrirr ^n^l .i JraiTO Thr fhre if u i*. m» ftrrit 
thdt U S t.irniri v ri h.ul plnnocd fti irtul 
Forniosi on )«inu*ir> ' v\c»f rctuinrJ fu vun- 
tinue the att. at i.uzun 


THE READER'S DIGEST 





THE STORY OF THE K4MIKAZE SUICIDE MISSIONS 


teer suicide pilot to crash it on an 
enemy ship The group of pilots 
trained to man this weapon was 
called Jjnrai Butai (divine thunder- 
bolt unit). “Baka (foolish) Bomb’’ 
was the nickname it earned among 
the Allies. 

Baka Bombs were used in the big 
attack on Okinawa on April 12. The 
pilot of the hr St missile to ''core a 
hit was remarkabh composed In 
his non-Hsing hours he was super- 
visor of a jiinioi ofViccrs' billet His 
last words before climbing into the 
mother bomber were ‘‘Keep an eye 
out for the new straw mats I 
ordered foi the billet ” He napped 
peaccfullv during the flight towards 
Okinawa and had to be aw’akened 
when the time came to start his 
flight to etcrnitv 

In the Okinawa campaign alone 
there were more than 1,800 suicide 
flights, B\ the time Japan surren- 
dered, a total ot 2,519 men and offi- 
cers of the Imperial Japanese Navy 
had sacrificed themselves. 

A few hours attci the Imperial 
proclamation ot August 15, 1945, 
calling for immediate cessation of 
the war, the Fifth Air Fleet com- 
mander, Admiral Ugaki, chose the 


69 

same death he had ordered for so 
many of his pilcjts He stripped the 
insignia of rank from his uniform 
and spoke to his assembled officers 
and men “I am going to take off 
for a crash attack upon the enemy 
at Okinawa Those who wish to 
follow me are requested to raise 
their hand" " 

1 licrc were more volunteers than 
there were planes a\ailable Of the 
II planes that mok off, seven — in- 
cluding Admiral Ugaki’s — radioed 
that thev were “diving on target ” 

That e\ening Admiral Ohnishi, 
who now was vice-chief of the 
Naval (jcneral Staff in Tokyo, pen- 
ned a note “To the souls ot mv 
late subordinates I express the great- 
est appreciation for their valiant 
deeds In death I wish to apologize 
to these brave men and their fami- 
lies ' Then he plunged a samurai 
sw'ord into his abdomen 

Refusing medical aid or a coup 
de grace, .\dmiral Ohnishi lingered 
on in agonv until six o'clcxrk the 
following ev enmg His choice to en- 
dure prolonged suffering was ob- 
viouslv made in expiation for his 
part in the most diabolical tactic of 
war the world has ever seen. 


•sJl^AViD SARNort, president of the Radio Corporation of America, 
reminiscing about his early years in the radio industry, mentioned 
the strong compieticion he had had to face “But Tm grateful to 
my enemies/’ he said, “In the long-range movement towards pro- 
gress, a kick in the pants sends you further along than a friendly 
handshake — Leonard L>oni 



The amusing struggles of a noted humorist with the formidable 
intricacies of the French National Ubrary 


flly IBook-Hunting 
Adventures 
in Paris 

B) Q)rnelia Otis Skinner 



S o\!E people, when confronted 
with certain invoked Cialic cus- 
toms, will comment righrcousl), 
“We do this better at home ” I pre- 
fer the more moderate view that we 
do It differently I’d never dream of 
suggesting, for instance, that our 
way of running a public library in 
America is actually better than the 
French way But 1 can honestly pro- 
claim that the technique of obtain- 
ing reading matter in Paris’s 

CoRSLi u <’)iis Skinmr bimultantously 
conducts varic.fl and highly successful careers 
as actress, author and, in private life, wife of 
Allien Hlod^tr and rnDtScr ot Otis Skinner 
Blodgct In addition to following her famous 
father, Otis Skinner, as a distinguished 
figiare on the Arncruan stage, she is the 
author of scvf‘ral btXKS and writes all her 
own dramatic Kiiicnal morif»lf)gucs, cnarac' 
ter sketches and historical solo-dramas • 


theque Rationale differs as widely 
from that of, say, New York’s Pub- 
lic Libraiy as escargots differ from 
hamburgers. 

Last summer I had occasion to do 
some research in this great book 
repository As the massive grey wall 
of the library loomed in sight I felt 
awed and purposeful. Frcnch»respcct 
for scholarship was manifested by a 
street sign saving, “SILENCE* 
BIBLIOTHEQUE*” I found my- 
self walking on tiptoe and about to 
say hush to a passing bus. 

A main entrance led into a spa- 
cious courtyard flanked by 17th- 
century buildings that looked like 
former palaces An arrow pointed 
to a public entry across the court 
and a severe no-smoking sign 
warned that it was defence absolute 
to fume under pain of immediate ex- 


MV BOOK-HUNTING ADVENTURES IN PARIS 


7 ^ 


elusion. The chill of this reception 
was mitigated by a warm welcome 
from the Bibhotheque cat. This 
weedy little tabby keeps watch at 
the Bibliotheque entrance, arching 
her back for whoever will pause to 
stroke it. 

After paying respects ♦■o the cat, 
I went up the steps and into a 
marble foyer. The words Salle de 
Travail emblazoned over a door- 
way indicated the reading room, so 
I walked confidently in. Not very 
far in, however, I was stopped by a 
voice of unquestionable authority, 
issuing from a man wearing that 
‘ indefinable semi-uniform which de- 
notes the public functionary 

“Your permit, madame,“ he said 

“Mv permit^” I echoed But yes, 
he repeated, one must exhibit one’s 
permit to get out books He made it 
sound like a permit to carry con- 
cealed weapons, but my meekness 
melted his red-tape-bound heart In 
softened tones he told me that if I 
would address m)self to the Bureau 
which found itself out in the foyer 
one would occupy one’s self of me. I 
thanked him and went to get my- 
self occupied of 

A door JTiarked Bureau led into 
a small passageway, dark, airless 
and jammed with permit seekers. 
Through a glass partition one could 
sec yito the inner office, where an 
applicant was talking earnestly to a 
lady who made long and serious 
notations in a ledger. The queue ad- 
v^anced at snail’s pace. Meanwhile, 
MIC all eyed one another in the hos- 


tile manner of patients in the wait- 
ing room of a throat specialist. 

At long last my turn arrived 
Without looking up from her led- 
ger, the lady m the inner sanctum 
said good day, madame, and what 
was It about, madame. Madame 
said It was about a permit. Did I 
wish to obtain a permit, she asked, 
and I answered with the French 
equivalent of yes if it was all right 
by her. She gave me a form to fill 
up and at the same time asked 
what I wanted the permit for. “To 
read,” I said “To read what?” she 
asked, and I said, “Books.” She 
wrote down the French equivalent 
of “printed matter.” Then she 
asked mv profession and I came out 
rather grandly with “actress,” hop- 
ing to impress her. She gave me a 
quick, appraising look; obviously 
the only impression made was that 
I was lying 

Next she stunned me by asking 
the name of the university from 
which I had received mv degree 
Actuallv I have never in my life 
received any legitimate degree, 
although over the years certain col- 
leges have generously bestowed on 
me some totally undeserved honor- 
ary ones. I thought specifically of 
three, and naming them created the 
impression that mention of my pro- 
fession had failed to produce. In 
tones of respect she then asked for 
my passport. 

Her respect was short-lived. “But 
rfiis IS not you!” she exclaimed. At 
first I thought she referred to my 



7 ^ 


THE RE4DER'S DIGEST 


litnuan 


picture and felt rather flattered un- 
til I saw she was pointing to my 
name, which, on the passport, was 
my married one. I had used my pro- 
fessional name on the form I tried 
to explain, but she cut me off by 
handing me a fresh form to fill up 
while she made irritable erasures in 
her ledger Sheepish, I watched her 
write, “Mme Blodget, arti<te de 
theatre " 

All this was taking up time I 
glanced nervously through the glass 
partition at the waiting Ime-up 
Their expressions dencited the 
“AadA*" and “Voyons^ Voyons^** 
of Gallic exasperation But the ladv 
continued to make cabalistic nota- 
tions in her ledger which, after the 
passport incident, 1 felt must be of 
an incriminating nature 

Eventually she handed me mv 
permit and I t(X)k it into the Salle 
de Tt avail and gave it to the uni- 
formed guard He read eversthmg 
on n. ntidded pontifical approval 
and handed me a cardboard plaque 
on which was stamjied the number 
a ^8 There’s no selecting one’s own 
seat in the Bibhothecjue Mv allotted 
place was 258, and there I must sit 
even if the man on my right reeked 
of garlic and the lady on my left 
sneezed like an atomizer 

Presidi ng over the Salle de T ravail 
IS the Controle, three impressive in- 
dividuals who sit on a raised plat- 
form behind 1 golden-oak structure 
that looks distressingly like a police 
desk. A man in the centre is flankeef 
by two indomitable matriarchs 


wearing black dust coats These are 
the oligarchs who file all permits 
and seat numbers before readers 
embark upon the perilous venture 
of looking up books 

This rite takes place in a room 
marked Catalogues Bibliographies 
which, as 1 was informed, finds it- 
self in descending the stairs to the 
left The room mav find itself but 
It was days before 1 found myself 
wise to Its workings On my initial 
visit 1 came upon rows of weights 
volumes, hancisomclv bound and 
marked “Authors “ Of the books 
on m\ reading list, one was by 
Wilhelm and another by Willy, 
but there was no volume for 
authors whose names began with 
the letter W 

At a nearby desk a kindly-lookmg 
man with the flowing moustache of 
an earls (laul seemed to be vaguels 
m charge 1 told him my predica- 
ment Ah no, he explained rue- 
fully, the handsomely bound books 
extended only to the letter M, obvi- 
ously one looked up other author > 
in the next room in the volumes less 
handsomely bound. .1 condition he 
appeared to deplore I made a think- 
nothing-of-it gesture and went off 
to search Willy I found, but there 
was no trace of the works of Wil- 
helm. I returned with the news to 
the kindly Gaul Ah but he naid, 
still ruefully, what was the publica 
tion date of the desired books ^ All 
IxKiks published since 1935 arc listed 
in the filing cabinets la-bas, cithci 
on the right or on the left 



MY BOOK-HUNTING ADVENTURES IN PARIS 


73 


Tracking down author and title 
IS only the beginning of the game. 
Next came the fun of filling out the 
request slips. These, some green, 
some grey, were stacked on handy 
writing counters. I selected a green 
one and sat down to study it A per- 
foration dwides It down the middle. 
On the left half must be put one’s 
name and address, one’s seat num- 
ber, the date, the listing of the 
desired literary work, the date of 
Its publication (the French are nuts 
for dates) and something called a 
tomatson which has to do with 
number of volumes On the right 
of the perforation all the above in- 
formation must be repeated, plus 
the name of author, title of book, 
place of publication with, of courset 
Its date and something called a /or- 
mat This, it warns, “must also 
figure below in the stack listing 
when, in the catalogue, it precedes 
the letter of the senes.” 

This last injunction I decided to 
figure out in my own good time 
What immediately stymied me was 
that Item about my seat number I 
knew where the seat was, so I 
hadn’t thought to memorize the 
number. This meant that I had to 
slink back to the Controle^ confess 
my delinquency, and stand on one 
unhappy foot after the other while 
die matriarch went over ttie files of 
everyone who had come in that 
morning. Finally she came across 
mine and told me my number was^ 
238 in tones so loud a few nearby 
readers glared and rmirtpH thnoi- 


hissing sounds which arc French 
for “Shut upl” 

Eventually I returned, cowed, to 
Catalogues and took my problem of 
the format to the kindly Gaul 
'^Monsieur ” I began, suts bien 
stupide (I am very stupid) . ” 

He smiled charmingly and gave 
a shrug which could have meant 
“Madame exaggerates” or “Ma- 
dame doesn’t express the half 
of It.” 

The format, he explained as to 
a backward child, indicated the ap- 
pearance of the book in question 
My impulse was to ask how the hell 
vou’d know until you saw it, but 
instead I said, “Oh.” Further ex- 
planation informed me I must copy 
off from the filing card numerals so 
small that deciphering them re- 
quired strong light and my glasses 
held at a much increased magnify- 
ing angle I returned to the counter 
and copied off everything except an 
ink stain 

In addition to all else, there was 
now (repeated twice) Pans 10, 
faub , Montmartre (79/5), fol 160 
P fig p portr , plane he en coul , carte, 
Fol ih 4 1 took this up to the 

Gaul, certain he’d give me com.plctc 
approval He gave me instead a 
sorrowful look. “But you’ve done it 
in pencil, madamc^” 

I returned to the writing counter. 
The pen there was barnacled^ with 
generations of ink and the nib was 
splayed like a pickle fork, but 1 
managed to make out a new slip, 
wKirK T friiimnKi'irtfrltr 



74 


THE READER'S DICES! 


inspection. I almost burst into sobs 
when my Gaul again shook a rueful 
head. “But, madame* Your seat 
number is 238, yes^“ I agreed that 
It sure yes was. “But you have made 
this out on a green slip^“ He was 
as incredulous as though Td made 
it out on a laundry slip Occupants 
of seats numbering i through 181 
use green slips, all others use grey 
I icturned to the counter once more. 

Request slips are deposited at the 
Controle desk in a square can into 
whose maw, amid grinding noises 
like a garbage disposer, they disap- 
pear and apparently journev down 
into the subterranean labyrinths of 
Pans There certain Jean Valjcans 
search out the requested volumes, 
send them by unseen means up to 
smock-clad attendants who make 
periodic deliveries to the readers. 
Meanwhile, you sit and wait 

There is something about this in- 
terim which is disturbingly like 
waiting in a classroom tor the pass- 
ing of examination papers Mv scat 
was directly before the Controle, 
whose members took on the aspect 
of proctors 1 was afraid to glance 
at what the people on either side 
were reading for tear I’d be called 
up for cheating. The wait seemed 
interminable, and 1 regretted not 


having brought with me some post- 
cards of the Eiffel Tower to send 
home. 

At last an attendant came along 
with our section’s allotment of 
books He set down one of mine, 
then reproachfully handed me back 
my request slip for the other. In one 
place, he told me, I had neglected 
to write today’s date “Couldn’t 
someone have written it in^” I 
asked in a whisper He answered in 
anything but a whisper that it must 
be in the applicant’s own writing 
So V said, “Oh,” and wrote 
“6/28/53 ’’ book 

appeared, I had been in the Btblio- 
theque toi hours. 

After this first initiation things 
went more easily, with only minor 
complications to keep the routine 
from becoming humdrum My 
proudest moment came one day 
when a bewildered Frenchwoman 
asked me how to make out her slip. 
And mv most endearing was after 
my final visit as I went out across 
the sunny courtyard the sight of 
the kindly Gaul of the Catalogues 
Bibliographies solemnly undoing 
the paper wrapping of his meagre 
lunch and sharing a generous 
chunk of his ham sandwich with 
the little library cat. 


Food for Thought 

Atlanta, Georgia, woman has an ingenious method for con- 
•.^uenng the “battle of the bulge.” When she goes to the kitchen for 
a snack and opens the door of the refrigerator, the first thing she 
sees, pasted inside the door, is a picture of herself when she was fat. 

— Hugh Park in Atlanta Journal 



How TO Relax 

By Joseph A Kennedy 


osT Oh US, in practically all 
our everyday activities, are 
driving with the brake on That 
brake is unconscious tension We 
have worked and played in a tense 
condition for so long that we re- 
gard It as more or less normal We 
do not notice the clenched jaw, the 
tight abdomen, the constricted mus- 
cles Yet the resulting fatigue burns 
up our energy, impairs our skills 
and even dulls our sensory apprecia- 
tion of the world about us 

Tension is excess effort trying 
too hard to do things that should 
be done automaticallv It causes 
muscles to jam and contract Make 
a conscious effort to speak corrcctlv 
and you stutter or become tongue- 
tied Let the accomplished pianist 
think about his fingers and he is 
likely to make a mistake. 

Most of us put forth too much ef 

Josn*H KhNNtDv hds taught his methods 
ot relaxation to pilots at the Preflight 
School at Athens, Cicorgia, where he was 
head of the Rehabilitation Department, and 
to overwrought business txttutivts at Bill 
Brown’s famous health camp in Garrison, 
New York. He has been a director of physical 
education for schools, for the U S Naval 
\cadcmy, and, at present, foi the Y M C A 
in Atlanta, Georgia 

V 


The art of overcoming tension 

IS the l{ey to happier living 

fort for the task in hand Our mus 
cles work better when we speak our 
orders quietly than when we shout 
them In order to sec perfectly, for 
example, the eves must make 
numerous minute movements, scan- 
ning the object under observation 
This scanning is an automatic re- 
flex, It IS no more subject to your 
will than IS vour heart beat But 
when vou stare — make a conscious 
effort to sec — the eyes become tensc^ 
They do not scan as they should 
and sight suffers 

Nor IS the damage done by ten- 
sion limited to the body When 
muscles are tense, contracting with- 
out purpose, a feeling of confusion 
IS rela\ed to the brain Why is it 
that a poised man whose ideas reel 
out effortlessly when he is in his 
own study suddenly finds his mind 
a blank when he is attending an 
important board meeting^ Because 
tenseness, resulting from making 
too much effort, has jammed 'his 
psycho-motor mechanisms. 

• Tension tends to become an un- 




THE READER'S DICES! 


January 


76 


conscious habit, muscles tend to 
stay constricted. How, then, can 
you become conscious of uncon- 
scious tension ^ How can you relax ? 

First, by locating the tension in 
your muscles. For example, you are 
probably unaware of any tension in 
your forehead at this moment, but 
there is a good chance that some is 
there. In order to recognize it, con- 
sciously produce more tension 
wrinkle your forehead into a frown 
and notice the feeling in the mus- 
cles. Practise sensing the tension 
that you thus consciously produce. 
Then, tomorrow, stop working for 
a moment and ask yourself, “Am I 
aware of any tension in my fore- 
head You can probably detect the 
faint sensation already there One 
student told me, “When I started 
to relax, I discovered layer after 
layer of tension of which I had been 
totally unaware ” 

Once you learn to recognize ten- 
sion, relaxation can be learned. The 
way to do this is first to produce 
more tension in your muscles Don’t 
try to relax ’ A muscle tends to relax 
Itself Consciously tense a particular 
muscle, then stop The muscle re- 
laxes and will continue to relax auto- 
matically if It is not interfered with. 

The muscles of the brow and fore- 
head need special attention, for they 
are closely associated with anxiety 
and confusion. With the brow re- 
laxed it IS practically impossible to 
feel worried. The next time you 
have a problem to solve, make it a 
point to keep your brow relaxed and 


sec if the problem docs not seem 
less difficult. ^ 

The jaw is one of the most expres- 
sive parts of the human body. We 
grit our teeth in rage, clench our 
jaws in determination. When your 
jaw is tensed, your brain, which is 
constantly receiving nerve messages 
from your muscles, reasons some- 
thing like this “We must be in 
difficulty, we must have a terrible 
job to do ” You then become con- 
scious of a feeling of pressure. 

As soon as you relax your jaw 
muscles, however, vour brain says, 
“Ah, we are out of difficulty now,” 
and you get a feeling of confidence 
So every time you feel anxious or 
experience self-doubt, notice that 
you arc contracting your jaws. Then 
stop. 

The hands are the main executive 
instrument of the body They are 
involved in almost everything we 
do or feel We throw up our hands 
in hopelessness, shake our fist when 
we arc angry When hands are kept 
tense, the whole body is geared for 
action Learn to relax your hands 
when you find yourself in a tight 
spot or when something irritates 
you. It will take the pressure off and 
give you a feeling that you are 
master of the situation. 

If you were expecting a blow in 
the pit of the stomach, you would 
instinctively tense the abdominal 
muscles for defence. And if you ha- 
bitually live on the defensive, your 
subconscious keeps your stomach 
muscles continually tensed. Thus, 



HOW TO RELAX 


77 


^954 

another vicious circle is set up. The 
mid'brain receives defensive mes- 
sages from the abdominal muscles 
and this keeps you feeling insecure. 
Learn to break the circle. When you 
feel anxious or worried, stop and re- 
lax your abdomen 

If you try to control your anxieties 
mentally, you will probably only 
make yourself more nervous But 
you can control your key muscles 

Learn to relax your muscles 
quickly at mid-morning, just before 
lunch and in mid-afternoon Sit 
down and “jelly” yourself into the 
most comfortable position Or he 
on your back on a bed with your 
arms at your sides. Then check 
your key points for tension brow, 
abdomen, jaw, hands, and so on. 
Tighten each, and then let go, 
allowing the muscle to relax by 
Itself. 

Breathing furnishes a valuable 
control for toning down the degree 
of excitement throughout the entire 
body. When we are emotionally 
tense, we say we have something 
on our chests When a crisis is past, 
we say that we can breathe easier. 
But It works both ways If we can 
learn to breathe easier in the first 
place, we shan’t get so 'tense. 

It will help you to learn to breathe 
correctly if you recognize that the 
body has two separate breathing 
patterns. Nervous breathers breathe 
high' in the chest by expanding and 
contracting the rib box. They also 
•breathe too fast and too deeply. This 
particular breathing pattern was 


engineered for emergencies. It is the 
way you breathe when you are out 
of breath from running a race. Your 
chest heaves as you take in great 
gulps of air. Your muscles need oxy- 
gen fast, and this is the way to get 
It. Nervous people arc so used to re- 
acting with emergency behaviour to 
simple, ordinary tasks, that they use 
this emergency breathing mechan- 
ism all the time. 

Non-emergency breathing is belly 
breathing It is done more from the 
diaphragm, most of the movement 
is in the lower chest wall and the 
upper abdomen As the diaphragm 
smoothly contracts and lets go, a 
gentle massage is applied to the 
whole abdominal area The abdomi- 
nal muscles relax. It is virtually im- 
possible to feel nervous and tense 
when you breathe habitually from 
your belly. 

If you find yourself breathing ner- 
vously and fast, keep right on — ^but 
breathe like that because you want 
to Take as many as 50 to 100 of 
these deliberate nervous breaths, 
thus bringing your brjcathing under 
the control of your will. This con- 
scious control will in itself cause the 
feeling of nervousness to diminish. 
After a time you will find that it is 
an effort to keep breathing fast, and 
a relief to let yourself breathe more 
slowly. 

One of the most malicious c£^ses 
of tension is hurry You can hurry 
while sitting down, apparently doing 
nothing, or w'hilc waiting for a bus. 
Many people feel hurried because 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


7S 


they think there just isn’t enough 
time They would do well to heed 
Sir William Osier’s advice to his 
students when he told them to think 
of how much time there is to use, 
rather than of how little. 

Whenever vou feel a sense of 
hurry, deliberately slow down. 
Everyone has his own best pace or 
tempo for doing things, and when 
we give in to hurry we allow ex- 
ternal things and situations to set 
our pace for us. The great Finnish 
runner, Paavo Nurmi, always car- 
ried a watch with him in his races 
He referred to it, not to the other 
runners. He never hurried but in- 
sisted on running his own race, 

Cartoon 

Home-coming husband to wife “I 
got a rise* Now we can afford last 
year’s taxes.” —The Wall street Journal 

Annoyed girl to date “Let’s go 
some place where we can each be 

alone.” — joker Magazine 

Small boy to father scowling over 
report card “Naturally I seem 
stupid to my teacher She’s a uni- 
versity graduate*” —CaiUers 

Father of obstreperous youngster to 
wife reading child-psychology book 
“Docs It say Where we’re to apply this 
free hand we’re supposed to give 

him?” — King Features 

Man in rfstaurant, trying to cut 
tough steak, to wife : “I sec what the 
waiter meant when he recommended* 
their pt^ce de resistance ” 

—The Saturday Evening Post 


keeping his own tempo, regardless 
of competition. 

A basic cause of tension is putting 
too much emphasis on the ultimate* 
goal, trying too hard to win It is 
good to have a clear mental picture 
of yout goal, but your attention 
should be concentrated on the speci- 
fic job at hand 

And when that job is done, re- 
member there will be something 
else to do tomorrow So relax * Life 
IS not a lOO-yard dash, btit more in 
the nature of a cross-country run 
If we sprint all the time, we not 
only fail to win the race, but we . 
may not last long enough to reach 
the finishing line 

Quips 

One sweet young thing to another. 

“I don’t know whether he’s a perfect 
gentleman or just not interested in 

me ” — The American Weekly 

One stenographer complaining to 
co-worker “That handsome young 
executive asked me if I had a date foi 
this evening When I said no, he pilec 
all this work on my desk *” 

— News SyndiLdtt 

Husband to wife “How do you 
expect me to remember your birthday 
when you never look any older?” 

— The Saturday Evening ^Post 

Wife to husband “Instead of buy- 
ing me an expensive birthday present 
this year, why not give me something 
you’ve made yourself — for instance,' 

money -This Day 



Business will have to hustle to fill 
the needs of Americas huge — and 
unexpected — population growth 


M GftWI 800M 


Condensed from Time 

HE United States, which 
was buying baby food at the 
rate of 270 million cans in 1940, in 
*1953 bought it at the rate of 1,500 
million cans. In the same period the 
U S toy industry has grown from 
an $84,000, 000-a-year stripling to 
a $900,000,000 giant. These are 
the measuring sticks of the Great 
Baby Boom — the greatest in U S. 
history 

U S Census Bureau projections 
had ihdicated a population gain 
from J940 to 1950 of only eight 
million. The actual gain was 
19,500,000 — to 151,700,000. And now 
the United States has topped 160 
million. In the last year or two the 
number of births had been expected 
to fall because the depression gen- 
erations of the i93os,far smaller than 
those of the booming 1920s, were 
coming of marriageable age How- 


ever, the fewer couples have been 
counterbalanced by the fact that 
high incomes and steady employ- 
ment are leading them not only to 
marry younger but also to have 
more children 

By 1975 the United States will 
need to set a “fifth plate" for every 
four persons now consuming. To 
produce the necessary food every 
five acres of U S. land must pro- 
duce as much as six acres today 

The population growth is further 
stimulated by America’s greatly de- 
creased mortality rate (those over 65 
will number 16 million by i960, 
compared with 12,500,000 now). 
Moreover, as the babies of the Great 
Baby Boom reach marrying age, 
there is likely to be a new popula- 
tion explosion which will make 
that of the 1940s and 1950s look 
small by comparison. 



ctVnyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work 
he is supposed to be doing ' —Robert Benchley, 

Chips Off the Old Benchley ^ be publiahed by Dennr Dobson, lyondon S W 1) 


79 



Cervantes- 

Author of the World's 
First Great Novel 

By 

Donald Culross Peattic 



I N THE CENTRE of Spain, the part 

called La Mancha, the plain lies The story of Don Quixote 

like a huge page open to the * and his maker 

sky. It seems empty, save for a tew 

villages, a few shepherds and their 

flocks. But if you are acquainted of our language, for any man may 

with the most-read work of fiction show a streak of the “quixotic “ 

in the world you will not find this The windmill incident is only one 

place empty For you, too, it will be of hundreds, some slapstick, some 

crowded with the more than 600 sadly true, some truly sad, which 

characters who troop across the fill this “bible of humanity “ And 

pages of the first great novel ever through all these adventures runs a 

yNniitiiy Don Quixote de la Mancha vein of philosophic wisdom which 

There on the plain you can see the was life’s one real reward to die 

very windmills, centuries old now, author, Miguel de Cervantes 
which the knight took to be giants. You can hear his laughing voice > 
Filled with splendid fuiy to do fine m his own description of himself at 

deeds, he spurred his old nag on to the time he was writing this classic 
charge them, only to be tossed on “Of aquiline features, chestnut hair,' , 
his head. “Tilting at windmills,” smooth and unruffled forehead, gay 
;vc call It to this day, when anyone eyes, nose that is crooked but well 
zealously attacks an imaginary proportioned, a beard silvered now < 
enemy. \nd the wonderful mad but golden a mere 20 years ago, big 

knight’s name has also become part moustachios, little mouth, only six 

So Wood engravings by Hans Alexander Mueller 


CERVANTES-^AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GRE4T NOVEL 


teeth and they in bad shape and 
worse arrangement, complexion 
light, somewhat heavy in build, and 
rather slow on his feet.” 

He came into this world, of which 
he was to see so much, in 1547, in 
the fine old university town of Al- 
cala de Henares, near Madrid The 
family soon drifted on, however, to 
Valladolid, Seville, Madrid. For 
Papa Cervantes possessed a coat-of- 
arms and little else; his profession 
of apothecary-surgeon brought him 
few patients who paid Miguel’s first 
recollection was of seeing his father 
snatch up household gear and rush 
with It to the pawnbroker, then the 
sheiiff came to clap Papa Cervantes 
in a debtor’s prison, leaving his 
daughters, Andrea and Luisa, and 
their two little brothers to weep 
with hunger. 

Somehow the boy Miguel got 
schooling He may even have at- 
tended the University of Salamanca, 
working his way as valet to rich 
undergraduates A novelist, though, 
learns his trade from life itself. And 
in the city streets Miguel learned it 
as It comes, harsh, unexpected, vivid 
with experience. In the theatre, 
where he spent what money he 
could scrape up, he learned what 
life is when it is turned to art. He 
discovered the power of make-be- 
lieve, and how it can create a truth 
greater than actuality. All he had, 
at 22, was dreams, and these were 
now of glory. 

He made his way to Italy, where 
Spain maintained large garrisons, 


and there enlisted in the army. At 
last he was well dressed, in a uni- 
form gaudy as a rooster’s, and for 
the first time he ate regularly These 
years in the service colour many a 
later page, when the old soldier re- 
members with relish the fine old 
inns, the gurgling Italian wine, the 
pretty girls. 

And he knew war itself. It was 
the Turk then who was the aggres- 
sor, and all Christendom stood in 
peril A mighty Turkish fleet, in 
1571, was sweeping westward 
through the Mediterranean. Selim 
II, Turkey’s sultan, meant to tear 
the Cross from St Peter’s in Rome 
and raise the Crescent there. Spain 
sent her ships under Don Juan of 
Austria (half-brother to her king, 
Philip II), to join those of the Papal 
States and Venice, in one of them 
sailed young Miguel de Cervantes. 

At Lepanto, off the coast of 
Greece, the fleet of these allies met 
the Turkish Navy in the bloodiest 
sea battle ever yet fought. Eight 
thousand Christians perished, 25,000 
Turks, as ship after ship went 
down, while the soldiers fought cut- 
lass to cutUss on the reeling decks. 
When the battle first was joined 
Cervantes lay below, tossing with 
malarial fever. He dashed on deck; 
a moment later two shots hit him 
in the chest, a third shattered his left 
arm. Yet he was with the firs^ to 
board the nearest Turkish vessel. 
The Crescent diat day sank in a 
>bloody moonset. It was Spain’s 
finest hour, and Cervantes’ proudest. 



82 


rHh RF/IDhR'S l)l(ji:ST 


January 


Leaving Italy in 1575, Miguel set 
sail for Spain with high hopes In 
his pocket he had a letter of reconi 
mendation from Don Juan to King 
Philip, which he trusted to bring 
him some good government post 
But the luckless voyagers were o\er- 
hauled by Moorish pirates and 
carried off into slavery in Algiers 
There, though his maimed hand 
spared him the galleys, Miguel be- 
came the property of Dali Mami, a 
renegade Christian turned pirate 
When this crafty master read the 
letter praising Cervantes, he con- 
cluded that his piisoner was a man 
of importance, and ordered him to 
send to Spain for a large ransom 
As the months dragged by, Miguel 
saw his fellows die in dungeons, he 
saw girls exposed for sale in the mar- 
kets He witnessed floggings and 
flavings, and beheld the dangling 


they admired utter bravery and, 
when Cervantes stood before his 
master with folded arms and lifted 
chin and defiantly took upon him 
self all blame tor the plots to escape, 
he won Ins life Hut not until he 
had suffered live \cars of captivity 
could his famiK in Spam scrapc\up 
enough to rescue Miguel And 
when he finally went forth it was 
with a testimonial signed by Moors 
as wcW as Christians that never had 
a prisoner stood so unbowed 
Thus in 1580 Cervantes at last 
kissed the soil of Spain — and learned 
how soon the world forgets a 
maimed veteran While he waited 
vain years for preferment, he tried 
his hand at writing But in the 
attempt to be elegant his book was 
onlv artificial— a “pastoral” called 
La Galatea, about stilted shepherds 
and coquettish shepherdesses, which 


corpses of those who had tried to 

escape Through it 

all he was the sup- ^ 

port and leader of m 

his fellow captives 

He fought off 

their despair, he 

organized, more 

than once, a break V 

for freedom. Each 

time he was de- 

feated, but when 

he was sentenced 

to ideath his own Jw 

courage rescued W 

him. For, itucI 

though these Mos- 

lem tyrants were, 


brought its 


author just enough 
money to buy a 
suit of wedding 
clothes and settle 
100 ducats on his 
^ bride. 

{ The girl, Cata- 
, lina de Salazar y 
^ Palacios, was 
voung, and she 
brought a dowry 
consisting of sever- 
al olive trees ^and 
vineyards, a few 
beehives and a 
share of the family 
^ farm implements. 
A good catch fo” 



795 ^ CERVANTES AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GREAT NOVEL 


some young peasant But Catalina’s 
husband was nearly twice her age, 
and meant to scribble He took her 
to Madrid where, in the bohemian 
company of actors, writers and pro- 
ducers, she was miserable As their 
marriage slipped into failure Cer- 
j/aniesho\crcd, a dizzy moth, round 
that daz/hng candle, the theatre 
His plavs made |ust enough money 
in encourage him to write others 
Then on to the stage strode a young 
writer, Lope de Vega, who in 24 
hours \.ould turn f)ut a box-office 
hit Cervantes was crowded out of 
the theatre, hurt and jealoqs. 

Then, he says, “I hung up my 
pen,” to take any employment 
ollertd That proved to be the job of 
the best-hated fellow among us — the 
tax eollcctoi He was also engaged 
to gather supplies for the great Ar- 
mada which Kin^T Philip was ready- 
ing to fight England 
But Cervantes soon found himself 
behind gaol bars The trouble was 
that be could not do arithmetic, 
perfectly honest, he had got his ac- 
counts in a muddle. Though re- 
leased, he was fined 6,000 reals 
Then, worried about carrying large 
sums in collected taxes, he deposited 
these with a Sevillian banker — who 
immediately went into bankruptcy. 
Cervantes went to gaol again 
t^re he learned the jargon of 
thieves, and heard the confessions 
of murderers. Looking through the 
bars, he sent his thoughts out over 
the hot white roads of Andalusia. 
TJhere he had met the world going 


by — strolling players, princes of the 
Church with iings on their velvet 
gloves, exiled Moors returned in 
disguise, venturesome girls in boys’ 
clothing, boys from the country 
running away to town, horse-trad- 
ing gipsies, hard-drinking mule- 
teers — all companions of a mile or 
two on the road, a page or two in 
the book that was growing in the 
heart of Cervantes. 

When released from prison, he 
was ready for his great life work. 
And Spain was at last ready to 
listen For she, too, had learned. 
The Armada called ‘‘invincible” 
had sunk to the bottom of the sea; 
with It had perished Spain’s roman- 
tic faith that she was destined to 
save the world in her way Time 
now to cauterize with the fire of 
pure laughter the wound in her 
pride Time' for a fantastic old 
knight to come riding out of La 
Mancha’s horizon, behind him his 
fat servant, Sancho Panza, on a 
donkey Out of the shadows round 
a poor writer of 58 came this pair, 
and trooping after them hundreds 
of other characters — none all good 
or all bad,. but all human. 

Don Quixote is an old skin-and- 
bones who has read so many novels 
about the age of chivalry that he has 
come to believe he is the last knight 
in Christendom, and must go forth 
from his village to right wrongs, 
rescue maidens, slay giants. He sets 
forth in rusty armour, on a gaunt 
horse he fondly thinks is a fiery 
charger To the deluded but valor- 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


ous Don all he beholds is translated 
into romance — a pug-nosed wench 
IS a beauteous damsel, a country inn 
IS a casdc, a flock of sheep is a Sara- 
cen host Though Sancho secs 
things as they are, he follows 
loyally, picking up his master each 
time he tumbles 

When he started this tale, Cer- 
vantes meant onl\ to ridicule the 
foolish chivalric romances that all 
Spam was reading But the world is 
so full of follies that the author soon 
spurred his knight on Sclt decep- 
tion, false grandeur, sentimental op- 
timism — one bubble after another 
IS burst bv the lance of laughter On 
and on flies the pricking quill, while 
a household of women clatter and 
chatter beyond the door These were 
his two ageing sisters, his faithful 
niece, his difficult daughter, and 
Catalina, his wife, loval to the hus- 
band she never understood 

Not even thev , not even the credi- 
tors knocking at the door could dis- 
tract Cervantes, for his story had 
run away with him The Don now 
begins to command our admirauon 
as well as laughter, and we love him 
fur his crazy nobihry Sancho the 
servant, whom we first assumed to 
be only a lout, proves to be a fellow 
worth listening to, salty with good- 
hearted sense They are, we dis- 
cover, two sides of the same person 
— the dreamer and the down-to- 
earth — and that person is you or L 

Don Quixote was first published 
in 1603, and its fame sped over the 
land. The pubhc clamoured for 


more, and Cervantes promised a 
sequel. Even while he was at work 
on this, he learned that a sequel to 
Don Quixote was already on the 
bookstalls and selling briskly. Its 
author, who called himself Avclla- 
neda, not only jeered at Cervantes 
for his poverty but besmeared the 
stolen characters of the Don and his 
squire with filthy writing. In a rage 
Cervantes dro\e his pen to finish a 
true sequel, which turned out to be 
as good as the first and better 
Today the two are printed as 
one \olume that stands among the 
great treasures of Western culture. 
Manv artists, among them Go\a, 
Hogarth, Fragonard, Dore, Dali, 
ha\c been proud to illustrate the 
tale Don Quixote has ridden on to 
the stage, into opera and the films 
Not that either fortune or per- 
sonal fame ever came to Cervantes 
in his twilight in Madrid. When 
French diplomats inquired there 
about the author of Don Quixote, 
they were told that he was just an 
old soldier, poor and known to few. 
They discovered him in a house in 
the Calle del Leon, where he came 
to the door on gouty feet to receive 
his distinguished visitors with old- 
fashioned Castilian courtesy. On 
April 23, 1616, it was death that 
knocked, Cervantes was laid in a 
grave that is now forgotten. 

Yet for ever there ndcs onward a 
gallant old man who levels his lance 
at all that is false, his shadow 
lengthening across Spain, across the 
world, across the centimes. 




H \d I TAKEN Signc to a marriage 
counsellor when she first got 
It into her pretty head that I was 
the man Heaven intended for her, 
I am sure I would have learned that 
she was not designed for a job as 
serious as matrimony But our court- 
ship was such a deliriously imprac- 
lital affaii that we never sought 
advice, and it is my good fortune 
that we didn’t. 

Not that Signe has changed She 
still can’t cook. She can’t, or won’t, 
keep house She can’t add— and 
will for ever believe that all there is 
to household financing is the down 
payment 

Yet Signe and I have been mar- 
ried for nearly ten years, and I can- 
not imagine a more satisfying mar- 
riage We have a home which, 
though modest, is one of the mer- 

The author, who is a Canadian |ournal- 
Vt, IS using a pseudonym 


nest in the neighbourhood W e have 
three lovely and uncomplicated 
children And our adventures have 
been such that when I sat down to 
think them over tonight my eyes 
began to mist 

Is she so very beautiful then*^ Yes, 
she IS But It would take more than 
her dark-blonde hair, her lovely fig- 
ure and country-fresh beauty to 
make me forgive the chronic dis- 
order of her house and her way of 
life. When 1 come home from work 
1 can be fairly certain that there will 
be a pile of dust at the head of the 
stairs where the sweeping was not 
finished There will be dishes in the 
kitchen sink, a loaf of bread that 
has been left open-ended all day, 
and so on and on. 

1 have argued fruitlessly about 
these things many times — and about 
the clutter in our living-room. Signe 
^ collects almost everything that 
doesn’t cost money * stones, butter- 



Hf) THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER I'VE MET 


flies, wildflowers, birds’ eggs and 
Heaven knows what else These cob 
lections adorn the bookshelves, the 
piano, the living-room table I have 
never met anyone else to whom sou- 
venirs meant so much Every trip 
we have made, every year of each 
baby’s life, every household event 
of any importance must ha\c its 
souvenir, and that souvenir must 
be in the living-iCKjm 

I once suggested that she take a 
few bushels of these things to the 
attic She said, “But whv have sou- 
venirs if they aren't where they can 
remind vou^’’ For that I had no 
answer, and the collecting goes on 

In our first years together, when 
I came home and found the house 
looking like Tokyo after an earth- 
quake, I would explode with indig 
nation Signe would listen with such 
apparent contrition that she would 
have me almost persuaded Then she 
would venture her excuse she and 
the children had gone swimming, 
or gathering wild strawberries, or to 
the woods for tnlliums Her excuses 
never bore any resembluncc to an 
argument — Signe nc\er argues On 
those earlier occasions 1 invariably 
ended the session as embarrassed as 
a hound encountering a labbit that 
will not run 

I have not entirelv given up on 
the housekeeping lectures, but now 
my ^efforts spring from habit rather 
than hope “Suppose my boss or the 
school headmaster or the minister 
should drop in on us now,” I say « 
“How would you feeP" 


It IS a foolish question These 
three and countless other people of 
our town drop in at our house al- 
most constantly — because they like 
It They enter without invitation 
(preceded by only the faintest for- 
mality of knocking), throw the accu- 
mulation of toys or children’s coats 
or magazines from the chairs, and 
stretch out their legs as if they were 
on a scat at the seaside 

There is the old bachelor from 
two streets away who is for ever 
bunging us fish Signe set aside a 
corner of the freezer for his use, but 
th( best fish, he always insists, arc 
for her 

There is Mrs Mercer, the little 
old lady who had to move to a small 
apartment in which she could not 
keep her Persian cat and Springer 
dog Signe found her crying because 
she had to part with them The ani- 
mals hav( been at our place ever 
since — and Mrs Mercer with them 
a good bit of the time 

Then there is Mr Powley, who 
brings the comics every Sunday 
morning and reads them to our chil- 
dren He gets in the wav when we 
are rushing to get the children 
scrubbed for Sunday school and his 
cigar IS strong enough to mothproof 
the room, but Signe is always de 
lighted when he comes “He likes 
children,” she explains “He had 
two boys of his own, and lost them 
in the war ” 

There are others The baker 
who drops round with his family 
of an evening, the excitable little 







H8 the readers DIGEST January 


woman who comes every time she 
has a squabble with her husband 
The list could go on and on. 

To Signc, everyone means well 
Evil IS something she has yet to 
meet, apparently. Last winter she 
bought some plastic dishes from an 
enthusiastic cioor-to-door salesman 
for Si a dish. A week later I saw 
the same brand of dishes in town 
for 65 cents apiece. “Those at the 
store must be seconds or thinner 
or something,” said Signc. “That 
man at the door wouldn't have 
charged me more for the same 
thing ! ” 

Even if I had proved to her that 
the two sets were identicaK Tm sure 
she would have suggested that the 
► man got his prices mixed up It 
would be beyond her belief that any- 
one might want to take advantage 
of her. 

And that includes the Army, It 
was the Army that brought on our 
one big quarrel — and in me pro- 
duced a great awakening 

We live on the edge of the town 
and a neck of the Army testing 
mund comes within a stone's- 
tnrow of our back garden. This camp 
had been here for years without giv- 
ing us cause to notice it. So I was 
surprised one hot August evening 
when I came home from the office 
and found an ack-ack gun on a jeep 
staring me in the face. The captain 
who was driving the jeep said 
casually, “Hot night, isn’t it?” 

1 agreed, whereupon he said good 
night and drove back to camp. 


I asked Signe to explain. “They 
were having manoeuvres,” she told 
me, “and it was so hot I thought 
they’d like some cold buttermilk ” 
She laughed “The eight of them 
drank six quarts’” 

“Six quarts’” 1 spluttered 
Her face fell “But I didn’t buy 
It out of the grocery money, dar- 
ling,” she explained “I took it out 
of the ginger pot ” 

That was the place where for two 
years Signe had been stowing awav 
driblets of cash for the playroom she 
has always wanted us to build 
“Look, dear,” 1 said, “you’ve got 
to consider your reputation. If some 
of these old women round here 
find out you’re playing host to the 
Army, what will they say?” 

‘^he didn’t make up talcs about 
other women, she said, so how could 
she know that other women might 
be eager to do that about her? “I 
saved some buttermilk for you,” she 
added. “It’s awfully good.” That 
was the end of my sermon. 

There was no ack-ack gun in my 
lane the next afternoon, nor any 
soldiers But there were six empty 
buttermilk bottles on the sink 
“They bought it themselves this 
time,” Signe told me blithely 
“They’re very nice boys ” 

“That captain especially,” I said. 
“He IS,” she said “He’s been in 
Korea, you know ” 

The third night there were eight 
buttc' ^Uk bottles, and I got ready 
to Lown the law, but )ust then 
the captain came. How would we 



THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER FVE Mhl 


like to come over to the camp 
cinema tonight^ he asked. Bring 
the whole family. 

It’s hard to tell a man off when 
he’s so genial Besides, Signe was 
already starting to scrub the chil- 
dren’s elbows for the event 
I have to admit I didn’t have a 
bad time that night 
Two nights later the captain and 
a couple of his boys brought the 
^Im projector over and put on a 
show for the whole neighbourhood 
on our lawn A few nights after that 
he brought over a Highlander, kilt, 
pipes and all, and paraded him up 
and down the lawn to the delight 
of Mrs Mercer, Mr Powley and a 
dozen others In short, the captain 
had become one of the club 
While I could never quite seem to 
find the wa) to say so, I didn’t like 
It The captain and his boys would 
come at the slightest excuse to bor- 
row a pen, to borrow a record, to 
lend a record, to get darning thread 
or a needle They mowed the lawn, 
took Mrs Mercer’s Springer out for 
exercise, baby-sat, trimmed the 
lilacs 

“Do you realize how little privacy 
we have now^’’ I asked Signe one 
night. “Ifs your fault — you make 
them feel so damned welcome ^’’ 
“But they’re lonely,’’ she said 
About a month later we came to 
the parting of the ways. My work 
had. taken me out of town for a 
couple of days, and when I got home 
,I scarcely recognized the place. The 
whole back porch had been remod- 


elled, extended and covered. It was 
the playroom 

Signe threw her arms about me. 
“The Army boys did it for me*’’ 
she said. “The captain got the ply- 
wood from some wreckers. All I 
had to buy was the two-by-fours 
and tar paper*’* 

The scene that followed is some- 
thing I’d rather not recall. Whose 
home was this anyhow ^ I de- 
manded Why wasn’t I consulted^ 
Suppose I couldn’t afford the job 
just then — why should she advertise 
rnv poverty^ Besides, who wanted 
the room covered with tar-paper? I 
had always wanted shingles 

1 didn’t eat dinner at home that 
night I went down-town to cool 
off 

When 1 came back three hours 
later the house was empty All the 
privacy a man could ask for — and 
the most desolate house 1 had ever 
seen There was a note saying that 
the children were with Mrs Mercer 
No hint as to Signe’s whereabouts 

I walked round the house trying 
to find relief by noticing all the 
things that were out of place or un- 
tidy It didn’t help much “She’ll be 
over at the camp,'’ I told myself 
“Saturday-night dance ’’ So I went 
over to the camp recreation hall. 

She was there all right, and she 
was dancing I sat down at a table 
in a corner and waited % 

The captain must have been 
watching for me, because he came 
to my table almost at once. “I was 
waiting for you,’’ he said 



THF MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTIR TVF MFl 


oo 


He look out a cigarette and 
looked at it a long time “So \ou’re 
sore. I'm sorry 1 didn’t see that we 
were getting on \our ner\es " 

“I came to take m\ wife home,” 

I burst out 

“Look," said the captain, “\ou’re 
one of the damnedest fools r\ce\er 
met* I’m sorry you didn't like the 
playroom M\ boys chipped in three 
backs apiece for that plywood, and 
four of them ga\e up a trip home 
to help put the room up Signe 
wanted to surprise you, and we 
wanted to do what would make her 
happy Do you think there was 
something else we had in our filthy 
minds'’" 

I didn’t answer 

“Look at the men here," he went 
on. “They’ve been all over the 
world, and have seen e\ery mean, 
ugly thing there is Some of them 
have spent half a lifetime doing 
their bit to straighten out the mess 
some stinker’s meanness has caused 
And then one. day they run across 
somebody that hasn’t an ounce of 
selfishness And a bunch of swell 
kids. Is it any wonder they like to 
hang around your placed 
“Give us a world full of people 
like that woman and you could 
plough up every damned army 
camp in the world and put it in 
potatoes* You’re the man that’s got 
her,oand vou’re belly-aching about 
It* 1 know It’s tough having to 

yl/oTHiNc damages a car more 


share her like you do, but you can’t 
keep a woman like that entirely to 
V ourself any more than you can 
copyright a hunk of sunbeam *’’ 

Somehow 1 had forgotten my 
wrath. I merely looked across the 
floor at Signc and started for the 
door 

The captain said, “Don’t worry 
about her Go home and think over 
what I've told you. I’ll bring her 
home She’s not happy here tonight, 
anvhow " 

So 1 went home to think it over 
and to take another lonely walk 
round the house looking at all the 
junk, the stones, the plastic dishes 
What was all this disorder^ I asked 
myself Perhaps it was only evidence 
of one so wholeheartedly absorbed 
Ik 4 life that was full and good and 
interesting that she simply hadn’t 
time to bother filing the pieces of it 
into pigeonholes 

The captain brought Signe back 
about midnight. As he had observed, 
she wasn’t happy She wasn’t happy 
until I finally got up enough courage 
to apologize Then, once again, she 
became the woman everybody loved 

The captain returned the follow- 
ing Monday to see how we were 
getting along In the late afternoon 
next day he brought the buttermilk 
boys over to finish the playroom, 
while the Highlander paraded in 
the back garden with his pipes 
screaming triumph 

than attempting to trade it in 

— Tottn Journal 



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V 




This young war veteran’s unconvettttonal religious fellowship 
demonstrates dramatically a vital rSle for Christianity 


What Fve Learned at 

Gordon Cosby’s Church 


By Catherine Marshall 

Author of “A Man Called Peter’’ ♦ 


' OR SOME TIME I had been 

’ ^ hearing in Washington 
about an unusual man — and an un- 
usual group of people — who to- 
gether are pouring fresh vitality into 
Christianity My investigation be- 
gan nearly two years ago, and it has 
been going on ever since That is 
how I know the stories that follow, 

of difficult human 

problems solved, of 
discouraged men 
and women re- 
turned to useful- 
ness, arc true 

The man is 
Newton Gordon j 
Cosby, minister to 
a tiny, vital con- 
gregation. His 
Church of the Sav- 
iour bears no re 
semblance to a con- 
ventional church, 

• See The Reader’s 
DfCest. October, 1952 



It IS merely an old brownstone 
house, round the corner from Wash- 
ington’s Embassy Row Nor is Gor- 
don Cosby himself a conventional 
minister. He is a 36-year-old war 
veteran, with a most unministerial 
crew cut and a youthful sense of 
humour For most of the members 
of his congregation this is their first 
experience of relig- 
ion ; and many did 
not come to it un- 
til they were in 
de^f>crate need 
Every Wednes- 
day and Friday 
evening church 
dinners are held in 
the brownstone 
house The first 
night I attended, 
there were atbout 
50 present, »with 
eight at our table. 

The young mini- 
ster turned a dis- 


Condensed from Christian Herald 


BY.885S 


When they talk about cloth — 

Binnyls isti,.„.n.e 

that means Value! 


IL'M 








w 


You can travel the length and breadth 
of India. Wherever you go, you will find 
the same thing : when people talk about 
cloth, they use one name as a standard 
for value. That name is Binny*s, 

Why^ Because Binny’s cloth has 
always been good. And by constant re- 
search, constant efforts to improve it, 
we make sure that it always wtll be 
good This striving for perfection, this 
quest for the ideal, is the reason why 
every yard of Binny’s cloth has a bonus 
of extra value woven right into it. 

When a whole nation agrees on 
value — you can be pretty sure 
they're rlghtl 





Issued by 

The Bangalore Woollen, Cotton & bilk Mills Co. Ltd., Bangalore City. 
The Buckingham & Carnatic Company Limited, Madras 

f* 

Managed by. Binny & Co. (Madras) Ltd., Madras. 


93 




9^ WHAT rVE LEARNED AT GORDON COSBY'S CHURCH 


arming Miiilc on me “1 hope you 
won't he shocked nt our memher- 
ship,*’ he chuckled “Steve, there, 
was one of our tvpical problem chil- 
dren He was an alcoholic and a 
drug addict " 

And this IS Siese's storv One 
day in February he was at 

home surtering trom a hangoser; he 
happened to hear a young minister 
spieaking on the radio and the talk 
impressed him Snll in the iiazc of 
intoxication, Ste\e telephoned the 
minister A \isit to the Rc\ CJordon 
Cosb\'s church stud) followed that 
same afternoon 

It marked a turning point in Ste\ e’s 
life Behind him wcie 20 years of 
heavy drinking, fi\e of drug addic- 
tion Four times he had tried to com- 
mit suicide , once he had almost died 
in gaol from respiratory collapse, 
alcoholic cornulsions and delirium 
tremens. Tcxlas, Ste\e is completely 
divorced from alcohol and drugs 

He now makes a li\ing tor his 
wife and two children by selling 
pianos. And along with pianos Steve 
distributes Christianity “You have 
to give away Christianity in order 
to keep it,” he explained to mew 
“Nobody can stay around this 
church long without wanting to 
pass on to other folks in trouble the 
help he’s received.” 

How did Steve’s cure come 
abopt? 

“I had been courting death be- 
cause I couldn’t find life,” Steve told 
me. “The first thing that attracted# 
me to Gordon Cosby was that he 


didn't sound pious The second was 
that nothing 1 could tell him shocked 
him And third, he seemed to care 
about me in an outgoing way Most 
of the love I'd known had been the 
clutching tvpe ” 

Cosby conferred with Alcoholics 
Anonymous, which had been trying 
to help Ste\c Then tor tw'o months 
the pair met in the little chapel of 
the Church of the Saviour at nine 
o’clock each morning Together they 
prayed and tackled the problem of 
“no drinking, ’ one day at a time 

Also at our table were vSam, a 
young scientist and oceanographer 
Phil, who is in the diplomatic ser- 
vice, Ben, who drives a bread van, 
Betts, an interior decorator, Karl, 
who had spent 40 years as a sailor, 
many of them as a drunken sailor 
Almost all of them were people who 
had had “past” lives from which 
they were freeing themselves It was 
like a modern microcosm of the 
people who once gathered round 
Jesus of Nazareth — tax collectors, 
tradesmen, fishermen 

The frankness with which they 
spoke about their old lives was re- 
vealing when one’s past is forgiven 
by God and wiped out, no emo- 
tional trauma about it remains 

Becoming a member of this church 
IS difficult, candidates must take at 
least a year of group study and pass 
four courses Christian doctnne, 
Christian ethics, Christian growth 
and Bible study. This emphasis on 
severe standards grew out of Gor- 
don Cosby’s conviction that church 




Paludrine 

PREVENTS MALARIA 



WH4T I LEARNED AT GORDON COSBY'S CHURCH 


96 

meiribcrship these days is often too 
casual and easy. He feels that we 
need to honour God by loving Him 
with our intelligence, and to de- 
serve Him by working to improve 
our lives About 150 people are in 
varying stages of preparation for 
membership So far, in sc\’cn years, 
only 67 people have made the grade. 
Even Aese members reappraise 
each year the total commitment of 
their lives to Christ 

I asked Gordon Cosby how he 
had come to embark on this unusual 
experiment I'he idea, he said, de- 
veloped out of his war experience 
After he had graduated in 1942 from 
the Southern Baptist Seminary at 
Louisville, Kentucky, he served one 
church for a time, and then sailed 
for England in 1943 as chaplain in 
the U.S. 327th Glider Regiment of 
the loist Airborne Division 

“1 knew,” he said, “that if I in- 
tended to bring the great truths of 
a healing Christianity home to mod- 
ern men and women 1 had to get 
first hand knowledge of our civiliza- 
tion’s greatest disease — war.” 

He got that first hand knowledge ; 
his division saw D Day on the 
beaches of Normandy. During 33 
continuous days of fighting in 
France, during the epic Christmas 
1944 siege at Bastogne, the young 
chaplains went unarmed into battle 
with their men. 

For rescuing 47 wounded men in 
one day and joining an assault com- 
pany within 30 yardsof enemy posi- 
tions Cosby was twice dccorat^. 


“Few soldiers were able to take 
months of campaigning like the 
Bulge or Bastogne without cracking 
up in some way,” Gordon Cosby 
says. “A fair percentage of those 
boys had received everything their 
churches at home had to offer. Yet 
the spiritual resources just weren’t 
there when they needed them most ” 

Gordon Cosby began to streng- 
then his men by building from 
within. His task was to help build 
small groups of soldiers to share 
Christian experiences in discussions 
and weekly prayer services The 
men responded in an amazing way 
Attendance at Sunday services 
doubled, then trebled 

In these years in Europe the guid- 
ing principles of Cosby’s new church 
were hammered out, one by one. It 
would be non denominational and 
inter racial. It would not compete 
with any denomination, but would 
reach out for the unchurched. It 
would require certain minimum 
disciplines for membership, includ- 
ing study to ensure a literate Pro- 
testantism, and tithing — ^giving a 
minimum of one-tenth of one’s in- 
come to the church. Most important, 
the small group idea, which had put 
so much power into religion among 
Cosby’s GIs, would be earned over 
into the church. 

These nurturing fellowship groups 
are now the nerve centres of the 
Church of the Saviour and a great 
part of the secret of its amazing 
Vitality. Their members — rarely 
more than 12— study and pray to- 



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9S 

gethcr once a week, share one an- 
other’s joys and shoulder one an- 
other’s problems. 

Seven years ago there were six 
members of thischurch, with receipts 
in hand of $30 Last \ear the budget 
was $50, (XX). The church owns the 
25-roomcd Washington house and a 
I75'acre Retreat Farm for south 
work in Mars land 'Fwents pci cent 
of the budget goe^ for help to others 
“How,'’ I asked (Gordon Cosby, 
“can 67 members do all that^” 
“When God gets people’s total 
lives,’’ he answered, “of course He 
also gets their purses None of our 
people arc wealths But we have 75 
individuals giving from ten to 30 
per cent of their incomes ’’ 

You feci the out going friendli- 
ness of the group as soon as you 
enter the door There is an easy- 
going camaraderie All the mem- 
bers call their minister “Gordon ” 
Yet he has the afnding respect of 
his people because he practises what 
he preaches and lives solely for other 
people 

In the beginning, Gordon put 
half his salary back into the work, 
and he continues to contribute a sub- 
stantial amount He puts in aboyt 
18 hours a day, much of it in per- 
sonal counselling 

“Even one person and the quality 
of his living,’’ Gordon Cosby told 
me earnestly, “makes a vital differ- 
ence in the kind of world we’re 
going to 'tave in the future Each of 
us counts That’s God’s message 
He teaches us tliat what we are and 


what we do matter to Him and to 
the world Fur example, I think of 
Meg Surely she was worth saving ’’ 

Meg, the product of an unhappy 
broken home, quit secondary school 
after her second year There foh 
lowed ten vears of a life so im- 
moral as to be amoral Men came 
and went She drank heavily There 
w'as an illegitimate baby, then fin- 
allv marriage Meg thought that 
marriage might change her It 
didn't She spent everv Saturdav 
night in a down-at-heel dance hall 
leading teenagers astrav bv her ex- 
ample Her many extramarital ad 
ventures helped drive her husband 
to attempted suicide and a period in 
a psvchiatric ward 

Then Meg came in contact with 
the people of the Church of the 
Saviour 

“At first I thought those people 
were crazy,” she told me “Then I 
didn’t care what they were I sud- 
denly wanted what they had ” 

GradualK she got what they had 
With the help of Gordon Cosby and 
the other new friends she made at 
the church she learned the heal- 
ing forgiveness and the limitless 
strength of (jod Forgiven and re- 
stored, Meg looked out on the world 
with new eves Her habitual gutter- 
snipe profanity died in her Her mar- 
riage was saved 

The old cliche, “You can’t change 
human nature,” has its point You 
can’t change human nature, I can’t 
change human nature. But God can, 
if we help Him 



There remained one small worry 
My mother-in-law, who had said, 
“ril never be found with my fttt 
under a son-in-law’s table'” and 
meant it, lived down the street in 
her own bungalow It would lx 
Marta’s duty to clean for her onct 
a week, and on Tuesdays and Fri 
days to see that nourishing dinners 
were cooked there On the first 
Tuesday, my wife took Marta to 
the bungalow, introduced her and 
left It would work out or it 
wouldn’t 

Marta came back smiling She 
was frank about the little shingled 
Tlir rnn^ bungalow u was kind of ramble 

Im I ml uL IL IVlLnL shack, she said But the old lady 

was sweet, she put Marta in mind 
By Joseph Henry faction of that famous painting of Hitler’s 

mother It was nice to do things for 
HEN Marta came to us, com- people who didn’t mind lending a 
plete with impeccable refer hand, my mother-in-law had helped 
ences, we knew we had a treasure Marta wrench out the cups after the 

Her greying hair was neat, it coffee, which showed she had her 

framed a pink, plump, confident heart in the right end 

face One child in the house, she It was a pleasure to discuss things 

said comfortably, was nothing, she with her, too, she never went off on 
took to our cat instantly, and It took a tandem the way so many ladies 
to her did They had much in common 

Very early in the game m) wife strawberries gave them both whelps 
began to adjust herself to Marta’s all over their arms 
conversation, and was not as startled One thing had bothered Marta 
as she might have been when Marta The old lady ought to eat more 
told her that she had found weasels Aftei that first day, Maita started 
in the corn meal It was good to carrying special dishes over to the 
kno^ they had been discovered and bungalow One night she took m\ 
prompdy dealt Vv^ith “I got rid of mother-in law the sweet in vfhich 
’em,” Marta said briskly, '‘cverv she took the greatest pride- -her 
single sanitary one'*' Baked Elastic 



Condensed from The Atlantic Monthly 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


Wc found that wc were getting 
less and less of Marta's time She 
was always just stepping over to sec 
how things were, she said firmlv 
that the old lady had told her to 
drop in for a snag whenever she 
felt like It In the end, as might be 
expected, we lost our treasure 
It began when Marta reported 
that my mothcr-indaw had given 
her an old evening dress — black 
velvet, covered with Seagram's The 
gift led dirccdy to evening dances 
at the city’s most popular Social 
Ballroom There Marta met a man, 
and from that moment romance had 
the upper hand She hadn't known 
him from Adams, she told us, but 
he had met her once before in 
southern California Thev agreed 
that they really liked Los Angeles 
better He was returning to his old 
job there, and he wanted Marta to 
go with him as his wife She would 
have liked to stay with us, particu 


larly with my mother-in-law, but 
anybody knew that it was silly to 
cut off your nose in spite of your 
face 

In SIX short months, Marta was 
her own woman again Perhaps it 
was because, as Marta had told my 
wife, he was a man who liked to 
step out, a great one for burning the 
camel at both ends Or because he 
was the kind that carried things to 
the inch degree Whatever the rea 
son, she sent us a postcard telling 
us she had gone back to work tor 
her old employers, the Trotts Sht 
thought of ns often, though, espe 
cially m\ mother-in-law, who had 
been a garden angel to her 

Despite her eccentric conversa 
non, Marta was the best c(X)k we’il 
ever had or arc hkclv to have, and 
for a simple reason Marta had 
been taught right As she said, she 
knew the piinciples of hom\ 
comi».s 


Where There s a Wile 

I was working in a departmental store, a >oung woman 
came in one day with some charge slips and asked mt to send 
them to her husband “We had a tiff,' she explained, “and he 
moved out When he sees these. I’m sure he’ll come back ’’ 
“Sending your bills to him doesn’t seem exactly the way to make 
him forgne and forget,’ I said dubiously 
“Oh, It isn’t the bills,’’ she replied with a smile “It’s what I 
bought ’’ 

I looked at the slips a second time and read 
2 Old-Fashioned glasses 
2 steak knives 
I perlume 
I bra and panty set 
1 nylon nightgown 

There was a reconciliation, I learned later 


Contnbuttd bv I \ 



The author of "The White Tower," an epic of the Matterhorn, 
returns a quarter of a century later to the scene of his climb 


Middle Age Meets the Matterhorn 


By James Ramsey Ullman 

ALL IT a sentimental journey. In 1927, aged 19, 
I had climbed the Matterhorn during summer 
t holidays. It had been one of the great experi- 
ences of my life For years I had hoped that some 
day I would come back to it with one of my boys. 
And now, an even quarter of a century later, I was 
'going to try it again — with my son Jim, aged 19 
The tram crept up the steep Swiss valley towards 
the village of Zermatt, and the massive battle- 
ment of the Matterhorn came into view, its black 
tang clamped against the sky 
‘i think It’s grown some,” I said to Jim 
The Matterhorn is more than a mere moun- 
tain It IS a monument and a legend By the usual 
climbing route, it is not a “difficult” mountain 
Indeed, it has been climbed by youngsters of 12 
and oldsters in their 70s. To the guides it is known 
prosaically as “the meal ticket.” 

Still, It boasts a name and a lure matched by few 
other peaks in the world. This derives partly from 
its savagely spectacular appearance, partly from 
Its equally spectacular history. Few human adven- 
tures can match the drama and tragedy of its first 
ascent, when Edward Whymper, after five years 
of trying, finally reached the summit in July 1865, 
only to have four of his six companions fall to 
death* on the descent. Scarcely a year passes that 
men are not killed on it. 

In 1927 I had climbed the Matterhorn on my 
second day in Zermatt; but now, in my middle 
ag^ I could no more have done that than have 



Condensed from Holiday 


lOt 



MIDDLE AGE MEETS THE M 4TTERH()RH 


swum the English Channel Fortu- 
nately, we had three weeks for our 
venture, of which the first two 
were to be used for lesser climbs 
and conditioning Jim, who had 
never climbed a mountain before, 
needed experience as much as I 
needed dekmking 
We broke ourselves in easily on 
the paths upwards through a bright 
sub-alpine world of forests^ meadows 
and rushing streams towards the 
bases of the peaks We ate chocolate 
and drank fresh rnilk at dozens of 
trailside inns We walked up past 
tinkling herds of cows, sheep and 
goats to the Alpine Club huts at the 
edge of the glaciers 
Every Alpine district has its so- 
called “practice mountain “ Zer- 
matt’s is the io,ooo-foot Riffclhorn, 
and there we headed, after a few 
days, for our first real climbing 
Roped to our guides, we worked 
our way up and down over increas- 
ingly difficult routes The rocks 
bulged and nudged, finger and toe 
holds shrank alarmingly But it 
went well Jim did a normal 
amount of scuffing, slipping and 
sweating, but got where he was sup- 
posed to get and seemed to be en- 
joying It So far, so good, I thought 
contentedK, as we walked down to- 
wards the village 
And then it happened A sharp 
pain shot through my right knee I 
stopped, flexed and rubbed it, re- 
sumed walking The pain was 
worse By the time we got back to 
Zermatt I was a cripple. 


That was the beginning of the 
Great Collapse, for the next week 
I hobbled about the village, visited 
the doctor, went to bed with incan- 
tations and compresses Jim was pa- 
tient, sympathetic — and obviously 
bored stiff I fretted and swore. 

The doctor finally decided that 
what ailed me was rheumatoid ar- 
thritis (a nice senile disease, I 
thought grimly) and began a senes 
of cortisone injections The shots 
worked — almost magically After 
the first, I got to the pictures with- 
out limping After the sixth and 
final shot, I could walk and climb 
as well as ever 

Jim and I started up the Matter- 
horn gradually, with oui guides, 
Emil and Alfons The first day we 
climbed only to the Schwarzsee 
Hotel, some 3,000 feet above Zer- 
matt, on the second, to the Belve- 
dere hut, 2,000 feet higher Around 
us, at the Belvedere, were only' 
great tumbled boulders and the 
white sweep of glaciers Above was 
It — 4,000 feet of rock pyramid tier- 
ing into the sky 

In the Belvedere were three Aus- 
trians who had spent three nights 
and two days marooned by a storm 
in a tiny Solvay hut half-way up the 
peak The mountain had closed in 
on them, toyed with them — and let 
them go What they had been 
through showed in their faces. The 
others in the Belvedere were, like 
ourselves, on the way up. There 
were perhaps 20 of us altogether, in 
parties of two, three and four. 



Kerosine 

a part of village 

Condensed 

from the ^urmah-Shell Neu’f 


Advertise men i 



Ij'oR half-a-century now the kero- 
|l sme lamp has been the friendly 
1 light burning quietly in the 
fastness of millions of Indian homes 
As an illuminant Kerosine was first 
used in Asia around 1880, nearly 
years after it had made its debut m 
• the L-nited States To-dav thedubbee 
(as the kerosine lamp is popularly 
known) IS the chief prop of village 
life IP India 

kasheli IS one among thousands 
of such villages It is about thiity 
miles from Bombay The life in this 
village is just like any other village - 
quiet, peaceful and yet bus) For the 
villageis in Kasheli the cock\ crow 
proclaims another working day The 
dubbec burns for a brief period to 
ligl T up the moinmg twilight, and 
Radhabai, a t\pical hi'usew ifc, begins 
her day in the I'lelds, weeding, 
sowing 01 haixcstmg, while her 
husband, Mahadeo Kamat, works in 
a sweetmeat shop 

Once a week- -or every da} if 
there is a Kerosine shop nearby- - 
the \illagers buy their Kerosine 
requirements This is usually done 
at end of the day when the 
villagers have earned their daily 

Burmah-Shcll, (inc of the three nitjur )il eompanics 
distribund during 19^2 m India 1^2,000,000 (gallons 
t»f Kciosinc * 


wages And so Radhabai wends 
her w^ay, bottle in hand, to buy 
Kerosine 

Madhu IS the Dealer He is well 
known to the w^hole village On the 
steps of his shop are two drums (4 
gallons each) “Chukker'* is Rad- 
habai’s favourite brand — she will 
not change it for anything She is 40 
years old, and “(.hukker'’ has been 
used in her home for as many years 

Having got her requirements, 
Radhabai walks back to her hut and 
cleans her dubbee and trims the 
w'lck Fresh Kerosine is put in which 
burns throughout the night 

The choice of Kerosine depends 
on a host of factors In Kasheli the 
villagers use s(X)t together wnth cow- 
dung to plaster then huts, and 
burning red kerosine helps them 
obtain this soot 

Kenjsine has many uses in the 
village Sometimes it is applied to 
heal a cut or w'ound, sometimes a few 
ilrop'' arc sprinkled on damp cow- 
dung cake or lirew'ood to set them 
alight easil} 

'1 hus the dubbee and the Kerosine 
that g]\cs life to It, holds pride of 
place in thousands of villages like 
Kasheli- -giving light and wafhath 
to the huts 


MIDDLE 4GE MEETS THE MATTERHORN 


At four the next morning Alfons 
woke us. There was little talk. 
Breakfast took five minutes Then 
we were outside, roping up— Emil 
and Jim together, Alfons and I. It 
was cold, but not bitterly so Scarves 
of mist wove round us but, above, 
the peak rose clear against the 
night. 

“Ready asked Alfons 
Off we went With me, in the 
still darkness, went the memories, 
the hopes, the dream’s of 25 years 
As we climbed up, up, up, gaps 
soon opened between the various 
parties For the first half-hour I had 
considerable auxiliary exercise wav- 
ing the others on past me And then 
there were no more to wave Jim 
and Emil and the rest were soon out 
of sight above “Come on, move,” 
I told myself And move I did But 
at exactly the same pace as before 
“A short rest, Alfons^” 

“In a few moments we will be at 
the Solvay hut ” 

(Ten-minute interval ) 

“Alfons, how about ” 

“We arc now almost there ” 

The sun came up, bright but 
without warmth And then sud- 
denly there it was — a tiny cabin, on 
the hp of nothing Alfons openeu 
his pack We ate some chocolate and 
drank tea laced with red wine. 
Then we started off again. 

It can’t get any steeper, I thought. 
But It did It got steeper and staved 
steeper. “A little faster, perhaps,” 
Alfons suggested I went slowci 
“Lean out more,” he said, “and 


you will see better.” I leaned in, so 
as to see as little as possible. 

Par for the Matterhorn, from Bel- 
vedere to summit, is usually reck- 
oned at four hours (In 1927 I had 
done It in exactly three hours and 54 
minutes ) The speed record, I 
knew, was an incredible hour and 
a half What the slowness record 
was I did not know, but it was ob- 
viously being threatened 

My legs no longer ached, but they 
seemed to have a pace of their own, 
beyond which no effort of will 
would drive them And now, as we 
got higher, altitude began to have 
Its effect I had to stop every 20 or 
30 paces and draw deep draughts of 
nothing into mv lungs I no longer 
bothered to call up to Alfons for a 
rest 1 simply stopped 

Finally we reached the shoulder 
of the Matterhorn, a delicate snow 
ridge between the precipitous north 
and cast faces, besond which the 
summit knifes into the sky Here 
begins the most difficult part of the 
climbing, and for the next half-hour 
was strictly not “doing it for 

For a pitch of perhaps 300 feet 
there is a series of fixed ropes, up 
which you must pull yourseT over 
steep and almost holdless rocks. The 
first rope went all right, the second 
not too badly, but by the third 
my arms were bars of lead and each 
breath was a major convulsion. My 
mittens slipped on the ice-glazed 
rope. I took them off, and my hands 
began to freeze. I put them back on 


Daddy 
fun ” 




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THE READER S DIGEST 


10)1 

and slipped again I needed rest. I 
had to rest But on the ropes you 
couldn’t rest You had to keep pull- 
ing, or else 

“You see,” Alfons called down 
cheerfully, “it is child’s play ” 

A few yards to the right, I knew, 
was the point from which Whym- 
per’s four companions had fallen 
4,000 feet to their deaths “W ill vou 
please think of something else,” I 
told myself savageh I thought of 
mv arms and lungs I thought of the 
black, bitter taste in my mouth I 
thought “Am 1 out of my mind ? 
What am I doing here anyhow^ I 
should be sitting in a nice warm 
room at a nice solid desk, writing a 
book Dear Lord, just get me down 
off this horrible heap and Til never 
climb anything again ” 

Then the ropes were behind us I 
looked up and thought “Not much 
farther . 

For hours Alfons and I had 
climbed in absolute solitude But 
now suddenly we were in the midst 
o\ a crowd — the rest of the climbers 
coming down For ten minutes 
there was much manceiivnng and 
sidling, as we passed on the narrow 
freeway of the ridge Then Jim ap- 
[)eared, grinning He and Emil had 
made it to the top in the traditional 
four hours and had waited for me 
for 45 minutes “Then it just got 
too cold. Dad,” he apologized 

I grinned back Or at least I hope 
I did Then we squirmed past each 


other, and he was gone. Alfons and 
I were alone again We put one 
hand above the other, one foot 
above the other “Not there,” said 
Alfons, “there ” I put it there. It 
was steep — terribly steep — and then 
not so steep and then not steep at 
all The snow under my boots was 
level When I looked up there was 
only the sun and the sky and Alfons 
turning with outstretched hand 
But 1 could not sec his face, because 
suddenly, to my astonishment, my 
eyes were filled with tears. 

Wf had taken just over five and 
a half hours to reach the summit. 
But It was not of hours I was think- 
ing — It was of years — as 1 stood, for 
the second time, on that slender 
snow crest in the sky For a mo- 
ment I was 19 again Not in my 
legs Not in my arms Not in my 
lungs But deep down beneath 
them, where I live And I know 
now, as I knew then, that I 
wouldn’t exchange those moments 
for many in my life 

That night, back at the hotel, Jim 
and I had a quiet, congratulatory 
drink Beyond the window the stars 
were bright, and the old heap stood 
up huge and black in its glory. 

I raised my glass “Well, here’s to 
seventy-seven,” I said 

“Seventy-seven?” Jim repeated. 

“Nincteen-seventy-seven. With 
your kind co-operation. That’s when 
we do It with my grandson.” 









( 




Wk 


A condensation from the book by 
R\LPH MOOP'i 


STORY you will not forget,” writes the New York Herald 
Tribune of this poignant account of a small boy's (Ictermma- 
tion to be the “man of the family” alter his father dies The 
book IS a sequel to the author’s best-seller, Uttle Hr itches, 
condensed in the January 1951 Reader’s Digest “It is every- 
thing that Uttle Batches was,” says the San hrancisco 
Chronicle, “a heart-warming, frank, completely delightiul 
narrative ” 

•'Man of the Family " copyright 19SI by Ralph Moouv is published 
by Peter Daii« London 





A CONDENSED BOOK 


January 


Jo8 



HEN Father died in 1910 
Mother was left with prac- 
tically no money and us five chil- 
dren. We had leccntly moved from 
an and little ranch into the nearby 
town of Littleton, Colorado. I was 
II years old Mother said to me, 
“Ralph, you are my man now; L 
shall depend on you.” 

It didn’t seem to me that the man 
of a family should go to school. I 
wanted to work, as Father had, and 
make a living for the family. My 
brother Philip was eight and Hal 
was five, so they were too young to 
get jobs. Grace was 13 and Muriel 
was ten, but they were girls. 

We had brought our mare, Lady, 
with us from the ranch With her, I 
was sure I could find plenty of ways 
to make us a living — ploughing gar- 
dens, hauling things, riding range 
maybe. Then, of course, I already 
had my rabbit business, and our 
hens. I wanted to tell Mother right 
then about not going to school any 
more, but I felt it might be better to 
wait. 

While I was getting dressed next 
morning I decided to go up to see 
Mr Cooper, who had a big cattle 
ranch where I had worked the sum- 


Man of 1 he Family 


mer before He had paid me $20 a 
month, and had told me he’d give 
me work whenever Father didn’t 
need me at home. 

When 1 told Mother my plan she 
took hold of my hand and said, 
“Ralph Father worked himself to 
death taking care of us, just because 
he never had proper schooling 1 
don’t want you to do it ” Then she 
swallowed and tried to smile “It 
must be 15 miles up to (hooper’s 
ranch You’d never be able to go 
back and forth every day, and I 
must have a man at home nights ” 

I hadn’t thought about Mother 
needing me at home nights So I 
went to school 

But I kept trying to figure out 
some kind of business I could start 
around town I was so busy thinl ing 
about It one day that I nearly got 
run over by halt a dozen wild long- 
horn steers. 

Stockmen driving their cattle 
either north or south had to take 
them right through Littleton in 
order to cross the Platte River. The 
stockmen hated Littleton. The cattle 
never would stay on the highroad, 
but kept turning off at the cross 
streets, or running into unfenced 



MAN OF THE FAMILY 


/09 


1954 

gardens. It would take nearly a 
whole day to get some of the big 
herds through, and you could hear 
the cowboys swearing all over town. 

This day, as soon as I saw those 
wild steers, I got an idea. I ran 
home, put the bridle on Lady, and, 
whistling for King, our black collie 
dog, went streaking up the lane 
bareback. I came out on to the 
River Road just as the foreman 
turned the leading steer down to- 
wards the bridge He was talking to 
Sheriff McGrath, and I worked 
Lady up towards them slowly so as 
not to panic the leading steer 
When the sheriff saw me he 
called, “Come on over here. Little 
Britches This here’s Sid Gibson ” 
Little Britches was all the name lots 
of people knew me by 
“Right sorry to hear about you 
losin’ your paw,” the sheriff said 
“What you and \our maw aimin’ to 
do ror a livin’ ^ Cal’lated you might 
go back to work for Len Cooper ” 
1 said, “I’d like to, but I can’t 
Mother needs a man at home 
nights ” Sid Gibson looked round 
at me kind of funny, and I saw the 
sheriff wink at him 
Just about then one of the cow- 
boys on the next corner started 
hooting, and a dozen steers dodged 
past him They went tearing up the 
alley behind the livery stable King 
and I got to the corner before the 
steers did, and after we’d driven 
them back to the highroad I went 
back to where I’d left the foreman 
and jthc sheriff. The foreman was 


swearing like a mule skinner “A 
man’s got to carry half a dozen 
extra hands to wrangle a herd 
through this damn town Hundred 
dollars all shot to hell in a hand- 
basket * ” 

That fitted right in with my idea 
I figured I might get a stockman to 
pay me to help him through town I 
knew I wouldn’t have any trouble 
getting ten boys to help me watch 
the cross streets for 25 cents a day 
As soon as Sid said “hundred dol- 
lars,” I crowded Lady right up close 
to his horse, and hollered, “I’ll bet I 
know how to i>ave you $90 
Sid shoved his hat back on his 
head and grinned “All right, cow 
poke,” he said, “fire away ” So I 
told him what I’d figured out 
As soon as I’d finished he said, 
“Little Britches, you’ve made your- 
self a deal I’ll be drivin’ back this- 
a-way ’bout October 10 ” 

Then I kicked my heels into 
Lady, and went to school as fast as I 
could At noon I talked to the other 
kids All the bovs — and even some of 
the girls — wanted to work for me 
When 1 got home Carl Henry’s 
chestnut team was tied out in tront 
Carl had bten one of our neigh- 
bours when we lived on the ranch 
Mother and Carl stopped talking 
when I came in, and 1 could tell 
something was up from the look on 
Mother’s face. 

“Draw up a chair. Son,” she said 
“Carl and I have just been talking 
about his lovely Jersey cows. He 
tells me that one of them would 



MAN OF THE FAMILY 


give us all the milk and butter we 
would need You could take care of 
a cow all right, couldn’t youf^” 

Of course I could take care of a 
cow. So I said, ‘‘Well, I’d thought 
we might get a cow this fall, after 
I’d earned some money There’s 
plenty of grass and clover along the 
river. I can cut ir for hay, and haul 
It home with Lady Hy fall I could 
get enough to last a cow and Lady 
all winter ” 

Mother cleared her tliroat, then 
leaned over and put her hand on mv 
knee “Carl and I have been talking 
about trading Lady for the cow,'’ 
she said “You see. Son, keeping 
Lady would be quite an expense 
She should have grain every da\ 
and Carl says the cow won't need 
any during the summer “ 

It seemed as if the bottom had 
dropped out of everything A lump 
as big as a cantaloupe came up into 
my throat and I couldn’t say a 
word I didn’t ciy,. but my eyes 
stung. And I couldn’t look at either 
Mother or Carl 

“Maybe this would work out 
better,” Call said “You know I lost 
one of my horses this spring, and 
I’m going to need another during 
haying But how would it be if you 
just loaned me your mare and I 
loaned you my cow ^ ” 

I had been so scared of losing 
La^y for ever that anything else 
sounded good to me I stuck my 
hand out towards Carl and said — as 
well as I could round the lump — 
“It’s a deal.” Then I ran out to the 


barn as fast as I could. I gave Lady 
a quart of the hens’ cracked corn, 
and I curried and brushed her td’ 
she was as smooth and shiny as vt ^ 
vet. Then I went off; I didn’t wanV.\ 
to be there when Carl took Lady 
away. 

OTHER knew how to cook 
really good things to cat — from 
just common groceries One Mon- 
day when I came home after school 
I saw that she and Grace had been 
cooking all day The food was all 
laid out— piping hot — on the table, 
and the kitchen was hotter than 
Tophet 

“Ralph, 1 am giving you a 
very responsible job,” Mother said. 
“We’ve got to begin making our 
own living, and we must make it 
through things we can do at home 
Do you think you could go from 
door to door with these samples of 
food and see if we could get enough 
orders to make it worth while?” 

I nodded, and Mother went on, 
“You can take them in Hal’s little 
wagon, pull it up to the back d(X)rs 
and ask the ladies if they would like 
to try your mother’s cooking. I’ll 
write the prices down Baked beans 
15 cents a quart. Brown bread, five- 
pound lard pail size, ten cents. 
Doughnuts ten cents a dozen, and 
apple pies 20 cents each Th^t may 
sound high for an apple pie, when 
they’re selling for only ten cents in 
the stores, but you point out to 
them that my pies are larger and 
have a lot more apple in them. 



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MAN OF THE FAMILY 


Mother heated a plank in the 
oven and put it in the bottom of 
Hal’s wagon to keep everything 
warm. Then we loaded the cookery 
into It 

I didn’t get home till way after 
dark, and it didn’t look as if I was 
any good as a salesman Mother 
asked me if I’d had any trouble, and 
I was so mad I didn’t know w’hat I 
was saying “Yes, I had plenty,” I 
almost hollered, “and I don’t like to 
do business with women They’re 
piggy and stingy and cheaters — 
most all of them I only got $3 30 
worth of orders, and they ate up all 
the doughnuts and more than half 
of the beans and brown bread And 
the ones that ate the most said it was 
too dear And that fat old Mrs . 

That’s as far as I got “There, 
there,” Mother said “You’re all 
tired out and hungry Why, it seems 
to me you did pretty well for your 
first day We only have to sell $20 
worth a week It’s half profit and 
that will give us $10 That’s all we 
need to live on.” Mother rubbed her 
hand up and down on the back of 
my neck. “Now you sit down,” she 
said, “and let me warm up your sup- 
per before you milk our new cow ” 

Our new cow was a good one 
Her back wasn’t any higher than 
my head, and we named her Duck- 
legs because her legs were so short 
Her bag was so big it came within a 
fetot of the ground, and she gave 
about 12 quarts at a milking We 
couldn’t use it all, so we decided to 
sell the extra for five cents a quart 


I had a lot more luck finding milk 
customers the next morning than 
rd had selling beans and brown 
bread Grace had written out some 
coupons — “Good for One Quart of 
Moody’s Jersey Milk” — and put 
them in little packs of 20 each All I 
had to do was to get a dollar and 
give the customer a pack of cou 
pons It worked fine By ten o’clock 
I was all out of coupons, and had 
$8 to take home to Mother 

The next day when I went out 
with some more cookery samples 
had a lot more luck too. I got a lot 
of orders When it was nearly dark, ^ 
I stopped to figure up how much, 
and it came to $16 I was afraid 
Mother’d kill herself if she tried to 
make any more cookery than that, 
so I ran home with the orders as fast 
as I could go without tipping the 
wagon over 

That night Mother took her 
Wedgwood sugar bowl down off 
the clock shelf — that was where she 
always kept the money — and 
counted the money over twice 
Then she said, “Mmm, mmmm 
My* Only $9 85 * I didn’t realize we 
were quite so close, but the material 
for those samples took more than I 
planned on And $8 of this doesn’t 
really belong to us yet It won’t 
until we’ve delivered all the milk 
for the coupons . . ” 

Mother sat pinching her lip for a 
moment, then she went on. “I’ll 
have to go down and see Mr. Shella- 
barger at the store the first thing in 
the morning. If I show him all these 







Mm Ob IHb / iMIL\ 


orders. I'm sure he will give us 
credit until Saturday But, Ralph, 
you’ll have to stop in and pay him 
just as soon as you finish your de- 
liveries, wc are not going to run up 
any groLcrv hi IP” 

So after I made the cooktrv de- 
liveries on Saturdav 1 st(i[)[Kd in 
and paid the groc^^ry bill Mr Shtl- 
labargci was big and l.it, with a red 
face and a white moustache After 
he’d marked the bill “Paid,” he 
looked .It me over the tops of his 
glasses, .inel said, “\"ou g(jtta dog at 
Kvime ^ 1 give )ou some scraps ” He 
went into his meat bo\ and brought 
out a package as big as m\ head 
'Iheie was onl\ $2 15 left after I 
paid the bill, and I hated to go home 
and tell Mother She didn’t feel b*iel 
about It, though Wc were all stand- 
ing b\ the kitchen table, where 1 
had poured out the monev that wms 
left Mother stoo|’)eel down and put 
her arms lounel the whede five of us, 
the way a hen puts her wings round 
hei chickens when it starts to rain 
“Don’t you see^” she said “All our 
groceries for the week are paid for 
and we have monev left over^” 
Then Mother opened the scraps 
Mr Shellabarger had given me for 
King “Win, RalplP” she said 
“You’ve picked up someone elsc’s 
package ” 

“No,” I told her, “1 didn’t He 
put It right in my hands ” 

“But It’s all little chunks of good 
red meat,” Mother said “He didn’t 
intend it for King at all Oh, every 
body IS so good to us*” 


NF McmNiNG Dutch Gunther 
and I were walking to school to- 
gether We weic a little late — and 
It was a luckv thing, too When we 
were going past her house, Mrs 
Roberts came out and called to us 
She said a stockman had telephoned 
to say that a herd of cattle was mov- 
ing north on the highroad 

I put my fingers between my 
teeth and whistled as loud as I could 
for King Then I told Dutch to get 
the fellows together while I went 
out to make a deal with the drover 

I had to get a horse somewhere 
The first one I thought of was Eva 
Snow’s Pinto, that she always drove 
to school with an old buggy I’d 
never seen anvlKulv try to ride him, 
but I didn't think about that as 1 
I an to the schoolyard I just thought 
that Eva’d l)c glad to rent him to 
me for 25 cents 

Pinto still bad his harness on 
When I ripped it off and piled on to 
his back he went crazy Before we 
were out of the schoolyard I went 
flying, but I held on to the haltei 
rope and managed to get on again 
Then Pinto ciow hopped, but he 
didn't buck any more, and when I 
smacked him with the halter rope 
we took ofi down the highroad 
lickcty-split 

The railway ran beside the high- 
road I’he herd had broken down 
the barbed wire fence between the 
road and the tracks, and I could see 
cattle coming into a railway cut in 
•a high hill Thiee or four riders were 
in am 3ng them, swinging ropes and 




.'i CONDENSED BOOK 


Jatjuarv 


I 70 


swearing so loud I could hear them 
above the bawling of the cattle. 
They were trying to turn the herd 
back, but weren’t having any luck. 

When I kicked Pinto through a 
hole m the fence and rode up to the 
trail boss with King army heels, the 
trail boss yelled, “Get the hell outta 
here with that dog before you 
stampede the stock * ” 

I was so excited I yelled right 
back, “You won’t have any stock to 
stampede if you don’t get them out 
of this cut before the mail tram 
comes through ' It’s about due ” 

rd been trying to think what 
Father would do if he had cattle in 
that kind of fix By this time I 
knew, so 1 hollered, “Don’t try to 
turn these steers back * Send your 
men over the hill to cut ’em off at 
that end, then drive these out this 
way P’ 

He started bellowing like a bull in 
a catde chute and waving his arm 
for the men to follow him over the 
hill. I rode Pinto up on to the track 
where King and I could head the 
catde down off the grade as they 
came through the cut Less than two 
minutes after the drivers brought 
the last cattle out of the cut, I saw 
the mail train coming. 

When the tram went by, sweat 
was pouring off both the trail boss 
and his horse. Ir wouldn’t be right 
to pat down what he said about 
those cattle, or fences, or the rail- 
way, or Littleton. I waited till he’d 
cooled off some, then I told him 
about having ten boys to help me, 


and that we’d see his herd safe 
through town for $io. 

“It’s a hold-up,” he hollered. 
Then he grinned at me, and said, “I 
reckon I already got $io worth of 
good outta you, but you ain’t goin’ 
to get It till your outfit sees me clean 
through town ” 

We had a dickens of a time. By 
the time Dutch and I got back there 
with the boys, cattle were scattered 
along the highroad for a couple of 
miles, and had broken through 
fences in a dozen different places It 
was almost three o’clock before we 
had them rounded up and headed 
into town And I was scared half 
silly By then the cattle were drier 
than road dust, and I was afraid 
they might stampede for the river 

Just as we carnc into town, school 
let out I saw kids come boiling out 
of the schoolyard, and sent Dutch 
kiting down there to tell the bigger 
ones to get on the river side and 
help us. The girls were best of all. I 
guess those cattle had never seen 
girls before, and they were afraid of 
them. All the girls had to do to head 
them off was to flap their skirts — 
and they did a good )ob of flapping 
There were over 900 cattle in that 
herd, and not one of them got away. 
By six o’clock wc had them all 
through town and headed west. 

When the drive boss shook h!inds 
with me there was something hard 
in his hand “You done all right.” 
he said. “Some of them boys is goin’ 
to make cow hands.” Then ho 
winked at me, and said, “Theln 



'954 


MAN OF THE FAMILY 


'‘7 


girls is all right, too. Bein’ you, I’d 
sec they got a treat. Same deal for 
you and me in October 

I said, “Yes, sir.” And when I 
took my hand away there was a $io 
gold piece in it. 

We took It up to Shellabarger’s 
store and broke it. I thought some 
of the boys ought to get more than 
25 cents, but Dutch said it would 
only spoil them But he did let me 
give him half a dollar for being my 
toreman. 

We decided on lollipops for the 
girls. They were five for a cent, and 
Mr. Shellabarger passed us out the 
whole box without even bothering 
to count them. Then I took Pinto 
back to the schoolhouse and gave 
Eva half a dollar for using him 

When I got home I gave Mother 
the $6 I had left and told her how 
I’d got It At first she just looked at 
the money as if she didn’t believe it 
was real, then she broke down and 
cried like she often did when she 
was real happy 

Father had always patted Mother 
on her shoulder when she cried I 
tried to do it the same way, and she 
stopped sobbing. Tears were still 
running down her cheeks, but her 
face was smiling when she looked 
up • “Do you realize, Son, this is as 
much money as lots of men earn in 
a we^k? We’ll put it right away to- 
wards the rent.” Then she hugged 
me against her so hard it made my 
ribs hurt. “Oh, Ralph, I don’t want 
you to have to be a man yet — ^but 
I’m so proud of you I ” 


ooN after school closed that 
summer, Sheriff McGrath said to 
me: “Whyn’t you go to pickin’ 
cherries? Ernie Ballad’s goin’ to 
start Monday mornin’. You go see 
him an’ I’ll put in a word for you ” 

Ernie Ballad was foreman on 
Gallup’s ranch, up on the hill cast of 
town I tried to get jobs for all of 
us, but Ernie said he didn’t want 
any flock of little kids breaking 
down his trees and eating six cher- 
ries for every one they boxed. But 
he’d let me try my hand because the 
sheriff said I was a steady worker. 

I didn’t do too well my first day 
at Gallup's. I wasn’t tall enough to 
reach the high limbs, and all the 
ladders were too heavy for me to 
move around I only picked six 
boxes of cherries all day, and some 
of the other pickers filled as many as 
a dozen. But after I went to bed that 
night It came to me all m a flash 
what to do about the ladders. 

The next morning I was up by 
half-past four, and made myself 
some stilts like Father had once 
fixed for Grace and me on the 
ranch. I put leather toe-loops on the 
footrests, and tacked on straps to 
fasten above my knees. Then I 
nailed an old belt to the top ends, so 
I could buckle it round my chest 
and leave my hands free for chferry 
picking. After half an hour’s prac- 
tice I could walk with them pretty 
well. 

Ernie Ballad didn’t like the idea 
• of my stilts at first, said he didn’t 
want any monkeyshmes. I had to 




SOME TIME LATER 


SO PANDITJI SAW THEM 


C Sol?... Sob) Oh i can't 
it I'w so tred 


I Well , S^ieil^r, ihafs \ 
nof a difficult fune, \ 
bwt md better stor 
1 if you are fired 
^ ( rinit^ks ) ^ 

The chi/d hots beet^ very 
listless fate/y T/l speak 
L to her parents ) 


Your daiA^hfer has^ 
vAoide very ^^ood 
pro0ree>5 -bwt lately 
sl^e has seei^ed 
, tired and listless / 


Sloe's beenX 
like that of i 
It\ovy\e too 
I doKt knoi^/ 

^ what io do ) 





THE POCrOR TOLD THEM 


(5roivm^ oW\\dreA wse wpX 
zv\trq\l very rapidly , ) 
if tlieir food does r\of (jive 
sufficient y]OUnshmer\f 
lo replace used-up emrqy 
tKey t;ecome fired and 
listless Give Horlicks to 
Skeil^! every day for the 
loody-^uildincj and enerqy 
creating nounshynenf 




LATER THAT YEAR 



Why the doctor 

recommends Horlicks 



“Ouiic jpait from ihe 
fact ihai active growing 
childicn need extra nou- 
rishment to keep pace 
with their oneig> require- 
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their ordinary meals 
olien do not give them atlequaie nou- 
iishmeni to keep them in and healths 
Thais vshs I aivvass tell pirenis not 
onis to svaish their shildien s diets but 
to make doubis sure that ihev get 
sutticient noimshmeni bv giving them 
Horlicks Horlicks is lusi what children 
need because ii soniains the bods -build- 
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cOw s milk p/ws the eneigising extracts 
of wheal and mailed barley 


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1)9 


HL 3687 





/ 


MAN OF THE FAMILY 


show him how well I could manage 
the stilts and how high I could 
reach. So he let me try using them. I 
picked 14 boxes of cherries that day. 

That night, when I was ready to 
leave, Ernie said, “Any other of you 
kids at home that can walk on stilts 
as good as you can?” 

I said, “Sure, Grace is better on 
them than I am ” He told me to 
bring her along. 

I made Grace’s stilts the same as 
mine, and she could soon use them 
fine. Grace was better at most every- 
thing than I — except horses. Even 
her first day she picked 16 boxes of 
cherries to my 15. By Friday night 
Ernie Ballad was so pleased that he 
said we could bring Philip and 
Muriel with us on Monday. 

They got shorter stilts and we all 
worked together, Grace and I picked 
from the higher limbs while Philip 
and Muriel picked the lower ones. 
Then we’d all move the ladder 
around so 1 could go up and clean 
the very top of the tree. We picked 
one tree at a ume, and we picked it 
clean. 

All together, we picked nearly 450 
boxes. When the trees were all 
picked Mr. Gallup gave us a cheque 
for $50, and ten boxes of cherries to 
take home to Mother for canning! 

Because they’d never earned any 
money before, we let Philip and 
Muriel draw straws to see which one 
would give the cheque to Mother, 
and Muriel won. When we got 
home Muriel went runmng up the; 
steps, flapping the cheque in her 


hand and squealing, “Look what 
we got, Mother; look what we got! 
Ftfly dollars^'" 

For about half a minute Mother 
looked stunned. Then she put both 
her hands over her face and began to 
laugh and cry all at the same time. 

Grace made her sit down and put 
a cold towel on her forehead, but 
she was still catching her breath 
when, finally, she said, “Oh, chil- 
dren, you don’t know what a load 
this takes off my mind.” Then she 
smiled, and drew us all in close to 
her. “Father must be proud, proud, 
of the way his children arc taking 
care of their mother. . . . And I’ll 
tell you what we’ll do— we’ll all go 
down in the morning and put this 
right in the bank Won’t it be won- 
derful to have money in the bank ?” 

Strawberries followed right after 
cherries And I didn’t have to ask 
Ernie if the others could pick. He 
wanted them to We were the first 
pickers that Ernie started, and we 
made the last picking of the season 
We couldn’t make quite so much 
money a day as we did on cherries, 
and It was a lot harder work, but 
the strawberries lasted longer Mr. 
Gallup paid us every week, and the 
cheque would be for $21 or $22 

We children all went together 
every time we put a cheque in the 
bank. 

« 

N July 4, Independence Day, I 
wanted to go to the fairgrounds all 
by myself. I knew the cowboys from 
Cooper’s would be there, and I was 



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122 


MAN OF THE FAMILY 


homesick for the ranch — ^and for 
horses. I wondered if the men 
would remember me — especially 
Hi. He was Cooper’s range fore- 
man, the one who really taught me 
to handle a horse and the one I’d 
done trick-ndmg with last year 

I think Mother guessed how I 
felt The night before, I was sure 
she’d tell me I couldn’t ride any 
horses, and I talked about most any- 
thing else, just to keep her from it 
But she only said she’d worry if I 
planned to do an) trick-riding, be- 
cause I was out ot practice “1 can’t 
have anything happen to you . . 
You will be careful, won’t you^” 

Mother seemed ternblv tired and 
her voice was almost flat But then 
she smiled, and she said, “Ralph, I 
do want \ou to have a good time 
Grace will bring the other children 
in the afternoon, but why don’t you 
go early in the morning'^” Then she 
gave me half a dollar and said, 
“A man should have some money 
in his pocket when he goes to a 
roundup.” 

I got to the fairgrounds and 
climbed up on the fence of the 
bronc corral Theie were nearly 40 
buckers inside, and I was stud)ing 
them when all at once 1 was yanked 
right off the fence. It was Hi. He 
swung me clear around him by one 
leg, and then tossed me up on his 
shoulder “By doggies, it’s old 
Little Britches hisself,” he hollered 
“How you been, pardner*^” 

I couldn’t answer Hi. He’d pretty' 
near swung all the wind out of me, 


and besides, I just couldn’t say a 
word. 

Hi put me down then, and said, 
“Betcha my life you can’t guess 
what I got over to the barn corral ” 

I could guess — my favourite 
horse I was so excited that mv voice 
went all squeak) “Is it Sk) High^” 
I asked 

“You’ie danged right, it’s Sky 
High,” he chuckled 

Sky High was way over across 
the corral when we came up, but he 
lifted his head when I c illcd to him 
He nickered softly, then trotted 
over to the bars 

Hi said, “Ain’t that purt\ ^ Actin’ 
jest like a old range mare that’s 
found her lost colt ” By then 1 was 
astraddle of the top bar, and Sky 
High put his muzzle right up in 
mv lap 

By that time Mr Coopei and a 
whole bunch of the Y-B fellows — 
that was the name of Cooper’s ranch 
— had come up They were all talk- 
ing about a bay gelding that Fred 
Aultland had brought in from 
Kansas They said he could run a 
quarter of a mile like lightning 
across a hot stove Tom I'ro^an was 
going to ride him in the Sioo-stake 
race, and all the fellows were going 
to bet or him 

The men were saddling Freei’s 
bay for a work out, and everybody 
was trying to tell Tom Brogan how 
to ndc him I yelled over to them, 
“I’ll bet Sky can beat him any old 
time.” - 

They all laughed, then Fled 




MAN OF THE FAMILY 


^24 

Aultland said, ‘*Lct Little Britches 
ride along with you while you’re 
warming mm up, Tom. Might keep 
the bay from getting nervous till he 
gets used to the lay-out here.” 

The first time round the track 
we just let the horses canter along 
easy, to loosen them up. Sky loped 
along beside the bay as easy as a 
greyhound. While we were going 
round the second time, Jerry Alder 
marked off a starting line, and stood 
there with his six gun. When the 
gun went off you’d have thought 
both horses had been shot out of a 
cannon. 

The bay was away first, but only 
by half a length By the time we 
had gone 50 yards, though, he was 
way out in front. The bay was run- 
ning with a short chop, his legs 
going like piston rods Sky was 
taking a long, pounding gait, with 
his head stretched out like a wild 
goose in flight. I had to do some- 
thing to make Sky take shorter 
strides and more of them. 

I stretched out along his neck 
with my head right up close to his 
ears, and started to talk to him. I 
just kept saying, over and over, 
“Come on, come on, come on,” 
right in time with the beat of his 
hoofs. Then I started saying it just 
a little bit faster. 1 didn’t yell, but 
just said It easy — ^thc way Hi always 
talked to a horse. 

The bay kept well in front most 
of the way. Then I yelled, 

Sll^r and hit him with the lines. 
He did go, too— and all the ume I 


kept on saying, “Come on, come 
on, come on.” 

The quarter of a mile was just 
barely long enough for us. We 
didn’t win by more than a nose. 

Hi slapped his leg and yelled, 
“By doggies, Litdc Britches, I 
thought you was goin’ to get your 
own head acrost the finish line in 
front of old Sky’s. What the hell 
was you sayin’ to that horse?” 

The bay didn’t win in the real 
race either. Mr. Batchlett’s chestnut 
did, by half a length. Mr. Batchlctt 
was the big cattle trader around 
Littleton. I guess he’d had a few 
drinks, because when he came over 
to collect he told Fred his bay was 
no good, that a heifer calf could 
outrun him any day. They had to 
hold on to Fred to keep him from 
taking a swing at Mr. Batchlett, and 
I thought there was going to be a 
free-for-all fight. But then Hi got 
the idea of having a match race 
between the two horses as soon as 
the fair programme was over. 

A while before the race Fred and 
Hi took me over and bought me a 
barbecue sandwich. Hi said, “Liitie 
Britches, you’re going to riae 
Fred’s bay, but you got to look out 
for yourself: Batch is putting that 
Le Beau kid on his chestnut and 
he’s a lough hombre. You be dog- 
gone careful ’bout gettin’ in close 
agin him. But if you talk to the bay 
like you done to old Sky, you can 
give that Frenchie plenty of loom 
and still win. You watch out for 
him, though.” 




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MJN OF THE FAMILY 


I 2b 

And Fred Aiiltland said, “That’s 
right You understand, Little 
Britches, this ain’t no life-ancl-death 
race There’s quite a chunk of 
money bet on it all right, but if Lc 
Beau starts makin’ it tough tor you, 
drop back There ain’t no race 
worth gcttin’ hurt for ” 

I knew Le Beau He was small 
but tough as whang leather He’d 
been in fights in every saloon in 
town, but he could ride an\ thing 
with four legs 

“Don’t worry about me,” I said 
“I’ll keep cleat of him ” 

Halt the men in the count) were 
ganged up around the traek gate 
when Le Beau and I rode out, and 
they sounded like a tloek of rnag- 
pies 1 never learned how much 
money was bet on that race But our 
fellows bet all thev eould, and 1 
think most eve r\ body else did, too 

Hi walked along beside the bay 
and me with his hand on my knee 
It was shivering, Init the more I 
tried to hold it the more it shook 
Hi kept soft-talking to me all the 
wav, just the way he’d have done 
with a frightened horse, but all I 
(an remember of it is, “Don’t take 
no chances. Little Britches, don’t 
take no chances.” 

Le Beau won the toss and took 
the inside position against the rail. 
Both horses broke together at the 
gun, and went down the back 
stretch neck and neck I kept the 
bay a gofAd four feet out away from 
the chestnut. As we came into the 
turn I still kept out a couple of feet. 


and the chestnut started to pull 
away from us I’he bay was doing 
the very best he could, but 1 
stretched up along his neck and 
picked up the beat of his hoofs and 
began calling, “Come on, come 
on,” to him But the chestnut kept 
inching ahead ol us till, at the head 
of the stretch, his tail was right 
even with my slviulder 

I was so busy talking to the ba\ 
that I forgot wdiat Hi had told me 
about keeping clear, and wc came 
into the straiglitavv.'v very close to 
the chestnut Tlu ba\ started to 
gam, and as the dHstnut’s tail 
slipped back p ist niv shoulder I 
saw Le Beau tuinmg towaids us 
The nevt second his whip cut my 
bay across the rnu/z/le 

The bav trembled, then surged 
forward angrily till his head was 
even with Lt Beau’s knee Tlien wc 
got It Lc Bc*iu turned and spat half 
a cupful (){ tobacco jukc right into 
my horse's eyes 1 got m\ '^hare, too, 
right in the eves The ba\ side- 
jumped, and 1 ncarl) weni out ot 
the saddle, but he didn’t break his 
stride All I eould sec was he 
blurred grandstand With mv 
mouth right up against the bav’s 
pinned back cars I st irted to veil,* 
“Go I Gf/ c;OI' at him 
fie did go, as I never knew an- 
other horse to go in mv hVe The 
crowd sounded like a stampeding 
herd My e\ts were burning, but 1 
blinked them open and saviJ the 
blurred white lines of the outside 
rail at my right I pulled on the* nigh 



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CU*AIIMAR DAIMT minilD JL VADMICU rn I.TI 



1^8 


MAN OF THE FAMILY 


rein so wc wouldn’t scrape it. And 
the next moment Hi’s arm looped 
round me and scooped me off on to 
his saddle pommel. 

I didn’t even know we had won 
until he held me on his knees by the 
pump and Fred Aultland poured 
cold water over my eyes Mr Batch- 
lett was there, too; he was leaning 
over me, and his voice was almost 
as soft as a woman’s. “Poor little 
devil,” he kept saying “Never seen 
such guts in horse and man in all 
my days*” 

I wasn’t really hurt; it was )uj>t 
that my eyes stung And after a 
while they felt better As Hi and I 
walked together out towards the 
gate, Hi told me that Mr Batchlett 
had his eye on me now that I’d 
won the race, and that he could 
throw lots of jobs my wav “Batch 
ain’t a mean hombre,” Hi said “By 
doggies, I wisht you could have seen 
him peel that Le Beau kid off'n his 
chestnut and slap the whey out of 
him. No, sirree, old Batch he don’t 
stand for them kinda tricks.” ' 

HAT July was really hot It was 
bad enough for me on the days I 
weeded Mr. Wilke’s market garden, 
but at least I could get a whiff of 
air. It was Grace and Mother who 
really got the worst of it The kit- 
chen was as hot as inside an oven 
And the hotter it got, the bigger my 
cookery orders grew. I think most 
of the ladies in Littleton must have* 
stopped cooking altogether. 

Sometimes when Mother straight- 


ened up from the oven she put both 
hands on her back, and she looked 
much older Her face and shoulders 
were much thinner, but she looked 
saggy round the middle, as though 
she had sort of melted and run 
down “I’m afraid you’re going to 
kill yourself, working so hard over 
that hot stove,” I said. 

Mother dropped her hands from 
her back, pulled herself up straight, 
and said, “No No I’m perfectly all 
right ” Then she smoothed her 
apron down, and said, “My, my* 
I’ve become so careless about myself 
since Father died I must get a new 
pair of corsets, these are getting all 
stretched out of shape.” 

It took nearly half an hour to load 
the cookery wagon that day — 26 
lemon pies, 22 dozen doughnuts, 16 
apple pies, beans and brown bread 
To hold the cookery I had put 
shelves in apple boxes and it took 
our whole clothesline to tie them 
on. When it was loaded. Mother 
said, “This is going to be the most 
profitable load we’ve ever had,” and 
she sent Grace along to help Philip 
and me. 

The load was high so that every 
little rough place would make it 
sway Philip pulled the wagon, and 
Grace and I each pushed on a back 
corner, balancing the load as we 
pushed. Everything went all right 
until we came to a turn in the road. 
Then the load began to sway to- 
wards my side, and Grace camr 
running round to help me. Maybe 
wc pushed too hard. The load 




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MAN OF THE FAMILY 


J^O 

rocked back the other way, teetered, 
then crashed to che ground, spilling 
every single thing on the wagon* 
Grace and Philip stayed there 
while I went home to tell Mother. I 
don’t know when I ever hated to do 
anything so much She was lying 
down on the parlour sofa, but when 
she saw my face she quickly sat up 
“What’s the matter, Son?^ Did the 
wagon break down'^” She wasn't 
cross, md she said it as quietly as 
she’d have said, “Is it cloudy 
I don’t think I’d have cried if 
she’d been cross, but to have her so 
gentle was what did it I don't re- 
member kneeling down b) her, but 
1 do remember her brushing my 
hair back with her hand, and say- 
ing, “Now, now. Son That’s no 
way for a man to act Why, every 
business has its setbacks Now you 
just gather up the food in pails for 
the chickens, then tell your cus- 
tomers that we had a little accident 
and can't fill their orders today.” 

I suppose I loved Mother as 
much every da\ as I did that one, I 
just didn’t think so much about it 
All the way along the route I kept 
thinking about her not scolding me, 
and remembering how tired and 
sagged down she had looked Before 
I got to the last house I knew just 
what I was going to do 

I had some money I had collected 
frftm Mr Wilke for weeding, and 
I headed straight for the One Price 
C>ash Stce I told Mrs. Richard^s, 
who worked there, that I wanted 
to buy a pair of corsets for my 


mother, the kind they had in the 
window for a dollar. She looked at 
me kind of funny, then she said, 
“Oh, you’re Mrs. Moody’s little 
boy, aren’t you^^ Your mother is . . . 
your mother has been getting rather 
stout lately, hasn’t she^^” 

“No, she hasn’t,’ I told her. 
“She’s just been so busy since 
Father died her old corsets got all 
stretched out over the hot stove ” 
When I got home with her new 
corsets. Mother’s eyes got teary. 
She laid them back in the box and 
said she was going to put them 
away tor Sunday best I was afraid 
I hadn’t got the right kind, but she 
said they were exactly what she 
would have bought herself, only 
she’d have taken the 89'Cent kind 
instead of spending a whole dollar 

^oj'l w\s jLsi after that that we 
got our horse, Lady, back, since 
the cookery business was making 
money and deliveries were getting 
too large tor our little wagon With 
Lady and the spring wagon the 
cookery route was easy for Philip 
and me, but Mother and Grace 
were working till they were nearly 
ready to drop Mothei was having 
dizzy spells, too, and every time ' 
she straightened up from the oven 
she’d bite her lip and put both 
hands to her back 
Then one Saturday she said, 
“You tell the ladies that you s|^on’t 
be making your deliveries for the 
next couple of weeks, the Moo 3 ys 
are going to take a little holida*y.” * 



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MAN OF THE FAMILY 




That’s all she said and it sounded 
funny to Grace and me And she 
certainly didn’t act as if she was 
starting any holiday. She worked 
as hard as she could that day, house 
cleaning. And all day Monday it 
was washing clothes and ironing 
Grace and I were really worried. 
“Have you noticed how she gets 
those dizzy spells^” Grace said 
“You know; it could be that some- 
thing’s happened to her head from 
cooking so much over the hot stove ’’ 
When we asked Mother to see 
a doctor she said, “Good heavens, 
no’ All I need is a little rest and 
quiet ’’ 

Mother did stay in her room for 
the next two days, but I don’t 
think she did very much resting 
Grace said she was mending every- 
thing, as if getting us all ready for 
a long journey It frightened us 
Then one morning Mothei didn’t 
cat a bit of breakfast She wouldn’t 
even sit down at the table, but kept 
moving around the kitchen with a 
cup of hot tea in her hand Pretty 
soon she said, “Wouldn’t it be a 
nice day for you children to have an 
all-day pitnic^ I’ve got a lot of let- 
ters to write, and don’t want to be 
disturbed Grace, you put up some 
sandwiches and milk ’’ 

Then she sent me w'lth a note to 
Mrs Roberts After Mrs Roberts 
readfit, she said she’d come to see 
Mother in just a few minutes. 
Then, whe«i I started to leave, she 
said, “Now, you be sure and keep* 
all the children outside all day. 


Your mother’s got a busy day ahead 
of her, and she can’t be bothered 
with you kids running in an’ out.’’ 

There was nothing about any of 
It that seemed to make sense. But 
we went on the picnic, and when 
we got home that afternoon Dr. 
Browne met us at the door. “Your 
mother has something she’d like to 
show you,’’ he said, and we all 
followed him up to Mother’s room 
Mother was in bed and her face 
was as white as the pillowcase, but 
there was a little smile on her 
mouth. We all tiptoed up to the 
bed. Mother turned the sheet back, 
and Siiid, “This is your new sister, 
Elizabeth Isn’t she darling^’' 

I felt kind of foolish, and I think 
Grace did, too Both of us knew 
enough about colts and rabbits and 
other things being born that we 
should have guessed what was the 
trouble with Mother But it just 
never once occurred to us 

H\T r^LL I went into the class 
for 12 year-olds But a few days 
after school began all of us came 
down bad with the measles Grace 
got it the worst, she almost died. 

The neighbours helped out all 
they could during that siege, but 
by the time the doctor let Grace get 
up Mother looked almost as sick as 
Giace. She had got very thih and 
her eyes were sunk in deep, with 
black circles aiound them. 

By late November Grace was get-^ 
ting strong again, but Mother was 
still weak, what with having *che 




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M IN OI Tin: F IMILY 


bab\ and nursing all of us through 
the measles We’d stalled the cook- 
ery route again, and even though I 
kept the orders small Mother could 
hardl\ get them out vShe still got 
diz/y o\cr the cook-sto\c Hut wliat 
ailed her most was worr\ ahcuit 
winter comin^ on bctorc we v\tre 

o 

read) tor it Our savings had all 
been used up to pa\ bills, irul we'd 
even had to sell pait ot oui (aniud 
fruit so we e'ould liuv wintti uiuler- 
wcar and shoes 

After suppti one night, 1 watched 
Mother as she stwed and could see 
she was having tiouble ket[)ing hci 
eves open And ulun thev uc*c 
oj)cn thev weren’t hoking it her 
sewing but straight <ihcad at tin 
ealendat on the wall Sudeienlv sh( 
said, ‘'Haven’t I seen that building 
somew heie"” 

I looked at the calendar, and 
said, “I guess most evervbodv has 
That's the Brown Palace Hotel in 
Denver ” 

Mother's face brightened as I 
hadn’t seen it do fur months “Chil- 
dren," she said, “I think I have an 
idea Ralph, vou and 1 are going to 
Dcrner tomorrcAV " 

Mother alwavs thought I drove 
horses too fast, but that next morn- 
ing she was the one who wanted to 
hurrv I didn't e'ome right out and 
ask Mother what die was going to 
do in Denver, but I came as cTose to 
It as I could But .dl she would say 
was, “I think the Lord spoke to me 
last night — not in actual words bui 
in inspiration " 


At the Brown Palace Hotel she 
got out and toUi me to wait for her 
‘T have some business to talk ovei 
with the manager,” she said 
When she e\imc (Hit again there 
WMs a porter with her, earrving a 
bundle half as big .is she wms 
Miitlur seemed \ei\ happv 
“Son,'’ she saiel, “theie is no cjties- 
tion but w'hat we received divine 
guidance last night I h.ive a nice 
bundle of Lue curtains to do up for 
the Blown Palace T hev are hard t(j 
latmeler but I'm suie 1 know just 
how to do them OI course tins is a 
trial batch, but if we can do a g(jod 
job on them we’ll lx paid cents 
a pan, and we c.m have all we can 
handle 

VvIkp w'e got home, 1 looked at 
our e.ilendar first thing 1 hadn't 
neXiced before, but everv window 
in that Brown Palace picture was 
elr.iped with lace ctu tains 

It wasn’t as easy as Mother made 
It sound The curtains in the bundle 
vveie all wadded up, as it they’d 
been pulled out of a rag b.ig They 
were diflerent si/es, too, and dl 
ragged and full of holes 
“Why, they're just a bunch of 
old discarded stuH,” (joice said 
Mother looked sort of disap- 
{omted loo, but she t(jld us how 
nice the manager h.id been “I don’t 
wMiit vou i(« think he’s done" us an 
injustice,” she said “He hasn’t. 
He’s simply giving us a chance to 
show whether w'e are to be truitcd 
with their good euitains ” 

We worked on those curtains all 




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MAN Ot IHh tAMILY 


iSb 

week. The washing and starching 
wasn’t hard, but lace curtains had to 
be stretched instead of ironed. It 
took a lot of experimenting before 
we figured out an adjustable frame 
that really worked. And Grace and 
Mother spent hours finding the 
best way to reweave the holes and 
mend the raggedy edges By the end 
of the week Mother’s hands were all 
trembly, so Grace finished the last 
curtains alone while Mother did the 
cooking for my delivery. 

But it was worth it. On Monday, 
when the manager and housekeeper 
at the Brown Palace saw those old 
curtains — ^looking almost like new 
— ^there wasn’t any question about 
our having all the lace curtains we 
could handle at 30 cents a pair. 

The curtains in the bundle we 
brought home that night weren’t 
all wadded up, either. They were 
folded neatly, and there were hardly 
any holes to speak of. Mother 
spread one out over the table and 
stroked the lace. “Isn’t it beauti- 
ful?” she said “Now I am sure the 
Lord spoke to me.” 

Grace’s fingers were tracing a 
circle on the curtain, and she said, 
“I’m sure He has spoken to me 
several times lately.” 

Mother asked, “Yes, dear; what 
did He tell you?” 

Grace didn’t look up, but she 
said, “That you’d kill yourself if we 
didn’t give up the cookery route.” 

None of us made a sound Then 
Mother uirned to me, and sai^, 
“Son, when you take your Wednes- 


day delivery, tell our customers 
we’re closing our cookery route. 
And don’t forget to thank them 
for the business they’ve given us.” 

By spring Mother and Grace were 
getting from 40 to 50 pairs of lace 
curtains to do every week. That 
gave us enough to pay for our rent, 
grocery bills and part of our clothes. 
Philip and I bought our own clothes 
and put the rest of the money we 
earned in the bank 
The curtains made all the dif- 
ference From the time we gave up 
the cookery route, Mother began to 
lookbetter She didn’t have any more 
dizzy spells, and her cheeks filled 
out Our evenings were fun again — 
just as they had been on the ranch. 
Mother always read to us as she rip- 
ped or sewed the rag strips for rugs 
Before Easter, she’d finished read- 
ing Lady in White, Ramona, Ben 
Hur and Ivanhoe 

THE LAST SuNDAY in May 
Mother let me ride out to Cooper’s 
ranch for the day, I wanted to see 
Hi especially, of course. Mr. Batch- 
lett happened to be there that day 
too, and we were all standing 
around the corral talking when Mr. 
Cooper offered me $25 a month if I 
wanted to work on his ranch 
“I’ll top that,” Mr Batchlett said 
right off. “I’m offering a straight 
$100 for the summer.” Then fie 
looked at me “I’m makin’ a swing 
to the south,” he said. “Rour^Jin’ 
up a couple hundred head of milk 
cows to trade in Denver this fall. 



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MAN OF THE FAMILY 


1^6 

Be back early in September. Want 
to come along?’’ 

To have both of them wanting to 
hire me at high wages made me so 
tickled I wanted to squeal. But I 
kept my voice as steady as I could* 
“I’d like to work for both of you, 
but I’ll have to think it over.” 

Hi and I went over to the bunk- 
house. He hadn’t said anything 
about my coming back, and I got 
an empty feeling in my stomach 
“Don’t you want me at the Y-B 
spread, Hi?” 

He took out the makin’s and 
rolled a cigarette before he snid^ 
“Little Britches, \()u know I like 
havin’ you on the spicad All the 
boys do ” His little finger kept 
flicking at the cigarette asli “But 
your paw wouldn’ta wanted \a to 
come to be a common cow [lokc 
Comm’ here, \a ain’t goin’ to be 
learnin’ nothin’ va don’t know now 
— only gcttin’ a littk belter at it 
But was \a to go with Batch, va’d 
be pickin’ up a trade, learnin’ to be. 
a livestock dealer ” 

Hi snapped his cigarette butt 
away “Yes, sir. Little Britches, 
time’s a-comin’ when cow pokes’ll 
be a dime a dozen. Small ranchers 
comm’ m Fences gom’ up all over 
the range, and cars gcttin’ thicker’n 
prainc dogs, too. Man’s goin’ to 
need a trade You think a bit ’bout 
gOin’ along with Batch ” 

When It was time to go, Hi 
walked out to the road with me, and 
just bcfoic I touched Lady with nsy 
spurs he looked up and said, “You 


can tell your maw I said Batch is a 
good man ” 

I didn't get to tell Mother what 
Hi said, though, because Mr. Batch- 
lett talked to her himself before I 
got nerve enough to bring up the 
subject So when I did talk to her 
everything was all set “A iz-vear- 
old boy is too young for such an 
undertaking,” she told me. “But 
I do realize that circumstances have 
given you a great deal more experi- 
ence than most boys your age I’m 
sure you’re enough like your father 
to keep your head So I’ve told Mr. 
Batchlett you may go ” 

If It hadn’t been so quick, I 
could have acted more grown up. 

I didn’t, though I hugged Mother 
like a little kid, then ran downstairs 
and hugged Grace 

n<r\ ;isT how Mr Batchlett 
worked Not very many people 
kept their cow after she went dry, 
but traded her for a fresh one and 
paid $5 or $10 to boot Mr Batch- 
Icti had a 5,000-acre ranch near 
Colorado Springs. He bought dry 
cow^s cheap and kept them there 
till nearly calving time, then brought 
them to his yards in Littleton, and 
traded them after the calves were, 
weaned That wav, he got the calf 
as well as the extra money 

That summer I made dozens of 
trips through the country with 
Mr Batchlctt’s outfit, some, as 
far cast as the Kansas border ithcre 
were six of us m the crew W)ien 
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MAN OF THE FAMILY 


140 

worked in pairs. I usually worked 
with Mr. Batchlett and rode Lady. 

One day early in September, we 
started the round-up of the cows we 
were going to move to Littleton. 
It was fun. Steers arc just cattle, but 
milk cows arc a lot like people in 
some ways. Every one is as different 
from the next one as women at a 
sewing circle. 

There were about 600 cows on 
Batchlett’s ranch by then, and I 
had one named for about every 
woman in Littleton. Some were 
quiet and gentle, and just looked 
at you with their big, soft eyes as 
you rode past Others would stand 
and bellow about how bad they felt, 
when you knew nothing was wrong 
with them There were curious ones 
and jealous ones, timid ones and 
bold ones 

The round-up was slow, though. 
Cows that arc heavy with calf like 
to get away by themselves, and on 
5,000 acres of range 600 of them can 
spread out pretty far By sunset 
Friday we had less than 100 head m 
the corrals. 

So at supper Mr Batchlett said, 
“I promised Little Britches’ mother 
rd have him home Labour Day. 
Way things arc stackin’ up, might 
be a week before we’re ready to 
move. But looks to me like we got a 
dozen head that might calve pretty 
sqpn if they’re not moved daggone 
slow. So I’m figunn’ on Icttin’ the 
kid take ’em along now, before they 
get too Close to time. That all right 
with you, Little Britches^ You’ll 


have to lug a blanket and camp 
where night finds you.” 

I was on the road by the crack 
of daylight. For the first couple of 
hours there wasn’t much for me to 
do. But after the sun came up I 
started having trouble with Mrs. 
Callahan. She was the fattest cow in 
the bunch, and always walked as 
though she had corns that hurt her. 
Well, now she wanted to stop in 
the shade of every scrub oak we 
passed, and when I’d pop her with 
the line end she’d just look round 
at me. Soon every cow in the bunch’ 
was looking for shade And by the 
time I got one old hippopotamus 
back on the road, each of the others 
would be heading off in a different 
direction Then Mrs Callahan de- 
cided to he down. I let the rest of 
them graze while Mrs. Callahan 
took a nap She’d have stayed there 
all day, but after half an hour I 
twisted her tail, and we went on 

All the rest of the day was the 
same. And by twilight we’d only 
covered 14 miles But it was a nice, 
cool night, and the cows moved 
better than they did in the daytime. 
I kept pushing those cows till I 
was sure we’d covered a good 18 
miles, then I found a good campsite. 

Most of the cows bedded down 
nght away, but Mrs. Callahan was 
still on her feet when I spread my 
blanket out and went to sleep. ^ 

There was a little grey in the 
east when I woke up. And^Mrs. 
Callahan was gone. But I could 
hear her voice close by, near some 



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SIAN Of THE f 4MILY 


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brush. In the dark she looked like 
a big boulder lying there — and 
there was a smaller boulder beside 
her. The little fellow couldn’t have 
been more than half an hour old 
I patted Mrs Callahan on the neck 
as I bent down to get a look at 
her calf in the dark She looked up 
at me and kind ot hummed 

We couldn’t think about moving 
that morning with a brand-new 
calf When we did get going again 
we didn't go for long Maybe it 
was Mrs (killahan's bragging that 
did It, and mavbe it was ]ust be- 
cause It was time Anyway, a couple 
of other cows had caUes Sundav 
night when we reached Larkspur 

It isn’t much more than ten 
miles Irom Larkspur to Castle 
Rock, but It took us five days to get 
there There were ten ealves when 
we w’cnt through Castle Rock, and 
most ot them were still wobbly on 
their legs 

We didn’t have too much trouble 
in getting from Castle Rock to 
Littleton There weren’t any more 
new calves, and we made it in two 
days rd had about the best tune of 
my life that summer, but I was aw- 
fully glad to get home 

vtR\BODY was glad to see me, 
too, and Mother wasn’t even upset 
about my not getting back by 
Labour Day She squeezed me up 
tight and kissed me over and over; 
and i.-' between she kept telling me 
how proud she was and that I Vas 
going to look just like m\ father 


In the three months I’d been gone 
Grace had changed into a young 
woman, Muriel and Hal seemed 
inches taller, and the baby was 
walking Mother’s cheeks were 
rosy, and Philip had done well with 
the chores The lace-curtain busi- 
ness had been fine, and during the 
cherry and berry season Grace and 
the children had earned a lot So 
with mv cheque from Mr Batch lett, 
we had nearly $300 in the bank 
At supper Vlother sat at one end 
of the table and 1 sat at the other- - 
in Father's chair with arms We all 
talked about what had happened 
during the summer, then about 
what wc had to do before winter 
And all the time I kept thinking 
about something Mother had said 
to Father when we first came out 
to Colorado from the East She had 
been awfulU discouiagtd the first 
time we saw the barien land that 
was to be our ranch, but she had 
lifted hci head and said “ ‘Trust 
in the Lord and do good, so shalt 
thou dwell in the land, and vcnly' 
thou shalt be fed ’ ” 

I guess Mother must have been 
thinking about that, too, because 
just before we got up from the table 
she said, “I want to say something 
to you children, and especially to 
Ralph, who IS now the man of the; 
family We’ve all worked hard and 
the Lord has rewarded our labc/urs. 
At first, I was so afraid of wK^t Wijs 
coming. But now I that 

Cci IS taking care of us .We’re 
going to be all right ” c 





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Transportation 

of 

Petroleum 

Condensed from the "^Burmah^ Shell Sews'" 

T he transport of oil is almost as 
complex as the oil itself As 
Petroleum is a volatile and highly 
inflammable fluid the means of 
transport must he incapable of 
producing heat 

Transport of oil in bulk includes 
pumping the oil along pipelines from 
one place to another or from one large 
container such as a sea>going tanker 
into another large container — a shore 
tank for example Daily some ten 
million tons of Petroleum and its 
products valued at Rs loo crores are 
at sea. A sailing ship ** Elizabeth 
Watts ” earned the first cargo of oil 
stored in wooden barrels. In 1877 the 
first tanker was built in Sweden In 
1890 The Shell Company ordered the 
•• Murex 



♦ The “murfx” carrifd 5,010 tons of oil 
The tankers which will keep the new Burmah* 
Shell Befincry cf Trombay supplied with crude 
otl will carry 30,000 tons of oil 

iv 


The tankers may be the largest 
individual links in the transport 
chain, but the most important are the 
pipelines 'Phe first pipeline was 
constructed of wood and in 1897 steel 
pipelines were constructed between 
Baku on the Caspian Sea and Batum 
on the Black Sea Since then the 
Shell Group alone owns and operates 
some 7,400 miles of pipeline and has 
a share in a further 4,250 miles 
In Installations and Depots it is 
usual to have a separate pipeline for 
each product for quality control and 
operational reasons At seven mam 
ports in India there is a Burmah-Shell 
Installation The oil is pumped 
ashore into the Installation tanls 
from which are filled the railway 
tankwagons which feed the 300 odd 
rail fed Bulk Depots scattered over 
India From the tank wagon the oil 
flows or IS pumped into the Depot 
tanks and from the Depot tanks the 
bulk lorries and “ fuellerg ” are 
filled for the final stage of the journey 
to the selling point So the sequence 
IS water- rail- road Lastly for the 
door-to-door delivery of Kerosine 
etc , there is the humble tank cart. 



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FEBRUARY 1 954 


Readei^ Digest 


VOLUME 64 

An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent booklet form 


A Thousand and One Lives 


ByA J Cronin 

Author of “Hatter’s Castle," "The Citadel,^’ "The Keys of the Kingdom 


^^AST SUMMER I WCnt OR a COR- 
ducted tour of Switzcr- 
laud Orc morRiRg, in 
BerRc, I was dctamcd, ro orc ro- 
ticcd rny abscRCc aRd the bus left 
without me I felt auRoyed, but as 
my party would be returuiRg or the 
followiRg day I decided to make the 
best of my euforced stay I visited 
the old towR clock which produces 
a processioR of autique figures at 
the striking of the hour, and then 
walked out to the famous bear pit 
Here I asked a bystander where I 
could get lunch The Swiss, seeing 
that I was a stranger, replied “I 
am just going home to lunch. 
•Would you like to join me?’* 

I hesitated at this unlooked-for 
invitation, but accepted I was in- 
troduceeJ to the man’s wife and two 
young children, and was soon made 
.to feel at home The Swiss was a 
watchmaker, and after lunch showed 
me, round his small factory, ex- 


plaining how the watches were as- 
sembled and giving me a chance to 
meet some of the workmen When 
we parted it was on cordial terms 
and with the promise to keep in 
touch with each other in the future 
Next day I rejoined the escorted 
tour, far from sorry at an occurrence 
which had not only gained me a firm 
friend but had vividly brought home 
to me an attitude of m^nd which 
cramps the lives of many people 
Some of us travel through life 
on a conducted tour, making friends 
only with the people inside the bus, 
keeping to the mam roads and well- 
recognized centres Then we realize 
too late that our lives are narrow, 
and complain that we are not fully 
living — forgetful of the fact that the 
remedy lies in our own hands If 
we are willing to go off the beaten 
track, to make friends and acquaint- 
ances with people of diverse call- 
ings, we shall find our lives immeas- 



THE READER S DIGEST Eebrmry 


urably enriched. In the words of the 
Arab proverb, “Let a man make 
varied friends and he will lead a 
thousand and one lives.” 

Ever since Aristotle, philosophers 
have agreed that even more than 
health or great talents a plenitude 
of friends is the greatest good in life 
Yet while this lies wholly within 
our power to secure, how seldom is 
It used as a working principle in 
daily life* Few of us really try to 
extend the circle of our acquaint- 
ances in the spirit of Samuel John- 
son, who said, “I look upon every 
day as lost in which I do not make 
a new acquaintance ” Dr Johnson’s 
friends, as in the case of most men 
who have had full and rewarding 
careers, were in all walks of life, for 
he realized that no one can claim to 
know life until he knows all types 
of men 

It IS easier than we think to 
strike up a friendship Whenever he 
entered a shop, Daniel Webster used 
to start a conversation with the 
shopkeeper, asking a question about 
a fine point involved in the shop- 
keeper’s trade in grinding coffee, 
for instance, or selecting a choice 
cigar. He knew that few people can 
resist discoursing on a subject in 
which they are expert; once the 
ice had been broken in this way he 
found that other exchanges followed 
easily and naturally. 

Another approach is to express 
one’s appreciation warmly when one 
receives a service. This breaks down 
barriers and draws people out more 


than does an hour of small talk. It 
was such a compliment that gamed 
me the acquaintance of one of the 
richest personalities I have ever 
known — a bootblack in Piccadilly, 
a tall, weather-beaten old man with 
a quiet manner. Most of his cus- 
tomers hardly exchange a word with 
him and leave without realizing 
that they have missed an opportunity 
of getting to know Vivian de Gurr 
St George, one of London’s most 
interesting characters — an ex-mem- 
ber of the Canadian Mounties, a 
man who speaks five languages and 
has a fund of fascinating and re- 
vealing stones to tell 

In casual encounters no method 
IS more effective than to find com- 
mon ground with the other person 
The mere fact of reading the same 
newspaper or owning the same 
make of car can serve as a gangplank 
to friendship Another sure way is 
to remark on some common taste, 
however trifling This was Sydney 
Smith’s approach, as his remark to 
Lady Holland at a dinner party 
bears witness “Madam,” he said, 
“all my life I have been looking for 
a person who dislikes gravy. Let us 
swear eternal amity.” 

Despite the rewards of wide*, 
friendships many people deny them- 
selves this enrichment of their lives. 
Some have an idea that they arc 
too good to mix with people outside 
their own group. These arc generally 
men and women who have nothing ^ 
to give to the world, and their real 
reason for refusing to mix is that 



'A 'ftiblSiMD Ja^D'okB Ui^ 


f954 

they fear they will be found out for 
what they are: not good enough for 
the high claims of friendship. 

They might ponder the fact that 
the great figures of history have not 
considered themselves too good for 
friendship with any man; on the 
contrary, they have given freely of 
themselves to all comers. Disraeli 
slipped away from statesmen to lis- 
ten to the problems of the poor m 
the slums of Whitechapel Rem- 
brandt was on familiar terms 
equally with the burgomasters and 
the beggars of Amsterdam 

There are others who mistakenly 
believe that only persons with simi- 
lar interests and objectives can be- 
come friends On the contrary, it is 
often people from different walks 
of life who form the closest ties, be- 
cause each IS attracted bv the nov- 
elty of the other’s background and 
occupation 

Not long ago I happened to meet 
a priest in France who, during our 
conversation, showed a detailed 
kno\^ ledge of America “When did 
you visit the States*^” I asked 

“Never,” he replied with a smile. 
Then he explained “In iq44, after 
the Allied landings, Americans were 
itSilletcd in our village An American 
officer came to our farm asking for 
water, and when I showed him to 
the well we got talking After the 
war he wrote to me and we started 
a regular correspondence He lives 
in San Francisco and he’s told me 
so rnuch about the life over there 
that I^fccl I really know it.” 


Some imagine that friendship is 
an affair of continual meetings. This 
is not so; it is a frank exchange of 
confidence, a sense of comprehen- 
sion and response which may last 
a lifetime, transcending space and 
time No one led a more remote life 
than David Livingstone, the ex- 
plorer, yet he had countless friends. 
His youngest daughter said of him: 
“1 remember him as always writing 
letters.” He sent hundreds each 
year to friends all over the world, 
many of whom he knew only from 
a chance and fleeting acquaintance. 

To declare that we already have 
a few old friends, neighbours and 
business associates and that life does 
not allow for more, is a mistaken 
view Nothing is more limiting than 
a closed circle of acquaintanceship 
where cverv avenue of conversation 
has been explored and social ex- 
changes arc fixed in a known routine. 
Sir William Osier used lo say, “A 
man starts to grow old when he stops 
making new friends For this is the 
sign of de\clopment, of assimilating 
new ideas, of zest for life ” 

We should never be held back by 
shyness fromencountenng strangers. 
I remember once at a party I pro- 
posed to a young student of music 
that he should meet the distin- 
guished pianist, Vladimir de Pach- 
mann, for whom the event had been 
given. He declined, saying with em- 
barrassment that the celebrity would 
only be bored by such an introduc- 
tion 

At dinner after the party the 



THE REAbER^S DIGEST 


pianist remarked to me- “I saw 
you talking to a young man this 
evening. He looked interesting and 
he had the hands of a musician — 
I should have liked to meet him ” 
Here was the chance lost of a valu- 
able and influential friendship, and 
It was one which did not recur 
If, through our friends, we extend 
our horizons and multiply our ex- 
periences, we strengthen and sta 
bilize our personalities Psycholo- 
gists know that the egocentric man 
is especially liable to neuroses, he 
greatly magnifies his private worries 
and, lacking sympathy, often breaks 
down under his difficulties Linked 
by the rope of friendship to his fel- 
low men, he would find the steep 
slopes of life less difficult 
The destructive forces that lurk 
in the subconscious mmd can he 


vanquished by an open heart, by 
cultivating the finest human quality 
of all — the one which is most needed 
today — a love of mankind 
Each one of us has something 
unique to offer in the cause of good 
comradeship It may be a certain 
trait of charactci or an outlook on 
life or simpl) a capacity for telling 
amusing stories, but whatever it is, 
we can give freelv of that gift each 
time we make a new acquaintance 
Bv enriching our own lives through 
wider friendship we also enrich our- 
selves for our future friends 
Each dav presents us with a chal- 
lenge to turn strange faces into 
familiar ones If wc take up that 
challenge ir the ]ov and adventure 
of discover\ and live in the lives 
of others, wc shall find our own 
lives grow full bevond measure 


Net4/spaper Tale 

j^AMES Gordon Bennett once had as London correspondent of the New 
Yor\ Herald a newspaper man whose )ob appeared to he very insecuie 
One day, the correspondent received a wire ordering him to report to 
Bennett in Pans, an ominous sign 

Now Bennett was a great dog lover, one of those who believe that 
there can't be much wrong with a man if dogs like him So before 
leaving London, the correspondent procured some choice pieces of liver 
(adding thereto just a soup^on of aniseed), which he stored in the tail 
pockets of his morning coat 

On arriving at the Bennetts’ apartment, he was left to cool his hfcls 
for an hour Then the door opened, and in w'alkcd the great Bennett 
with half a dozen poodles at his heels With tails wagging, tfie dogs 
made a concerted leap for the correspondent They jumped all over him, 
licked his face and hands 

Bennett’s face lost its hardness and became wreathed in smiles Instead 
of w^ielding the axe, he gave the correspondent a week’s vacation in Pa/is 
— and returned him to London with a substantial increase in salary 



Why ts the United States unpopular with other countries^ 

An astute Canadian bluntly tells his neighbours just what he thin\s is- 


"The Trouble 
with You Yanks" 


Bruce Hi ichjson 

Canadian editor and writer 


Fourth of Jul\, when 
111 ^ the Americans sent up rockets 
-l/ivQon the other side of the St 
Lawrence, m\ great-uncle Smcdlcv 
would lock himself in an old sentiv 
box with a loaded shotgun and watch 
the river all night He alwavs ex- 
pected another Yankee invasion of 
(Canada 

Sometimes, at hreajefast, he would 
glare across his porridge and tell 
me, ‘Eat hearty, bov Cirow'bigand 
‘‘t.ong One of these davs voiril 
have to light those Yankees’” 

But m\ grandma, who had lived 
beside them for 8o years, said the 
Yankees would be harmless alter a 
while “)iist Walt,” she'd sa\, “till 
they grow into their breeches ” 

In a sense, Canada has been wait 
ing ^»o vears for the Americans to 
grow into their breeches Because 
we Canadians ire Americans our- 
selves, because we speak the same 
language, live the same kind of life. 


arc -superficiallv the same though 
inwardly cjuite different, we know 
better than an\ other people what 
IS wrong with you Yanks Also, we 
know what is right we know you 
as the best nci'Thbours and truest 
friends an\ nation ever had 
And before w'c go anv further, 
let It be undei stood that we know, 
eejualK wxdl, what i wrong with 
us, tor we (.anadi.ins hardlv think 
ot anything else (This writer earns 
a reasonable lr»elihood explaining 
the dehcieneies of CYmadian life) 

If sou Y anks h.id been )usi a little 
smarter, if \ou hadn’t alternately 
bullied, wooed and ignored us, if 
vou had ever tried to understand us, 
W'C would have joined \ou long ago. 
That IS tht first tnnible with you 
Yanks You don’t understand any- 
bod\, not even your closest friend. 
You surge northwards and return 
w'lch snapshots revealing Canada as 
a kind of tourist brochure filled with 


CiQfdensed from The Saturday Evening l^o^t 





:ounties, French peasants, scenery, 
jgame, fish, moose and igloos, but 
»*ncver by any chance containing a 
P$pecial and ma\be an interesting 
sort of people You Yanks arc 
fascinated b\ the outside look of 
.foreigners You ne\cr get inside 

That is why your foreign policy, 
up to recent times, has been your 
- largest failure Your ignorance of 
other people has cost \ou millions of 
dollars and much blood which could 
ha\e been saved if voii had under^ 
stood the (ierman will to war, the 
British ability to fight, the mama 
of the Russians or the mind of 
China. 

You proclaim that all men, e\en 
foreigners, arc equal You will not 
understand foreigners until sou 
realize that in some things thev arc 
superior to you, m others inferior 
There will be no understanding 
between xou, the kadtr, and the 
people xou expect to lead until xou 
realize that the onlx equably mdax 
IS that of the leakx lifehoat in xvhich 
leader and led are all passengers far 
from shore 

Wh’le inttllectMallx inxolxed, xou 
are emotionallx uninterested in 
other people because xou lixe on a 
false premise \ ou assume, with a 
beautiful and childlike sinceiitv, 
that xour life is the basic norm of 
human behaxiour All other be- 
haviour is abnormal and in time, if 
It watches you closely enough, may 
achieve normality 

As your best friends, Canadians 
^are bound b\ friendship to tell you 


that, despite your gifts of money, 
your courage and your bloodshed, 
you are in danger of becoming the 
most powerful and most unpopular 
nation in the world outside Russia 
and mainly because, m a des- 
perate search for popularity, you 
have done everv thing except rceog- 
mze that other peoples arc not 
potential, underdex eloped Yanks — 
and nexer will be — ancl can become 
most useful to you, and most friendly, 
bx remaining thcmsclxes 
The British, who once ruled 
('anada .incl the w^orld, didn’t care 
about [lopularitx Thex rather en- 
joved being unpopular, knowing by 
instinct that they w^ere always right, 
but thev look c.irc to understand 
other people, without bothering to 
like them You do the opposite 
Par.uloxicallx, where the British 
were uttcrlv sure of themseixes you 
ar(‘ full of inxvard doubts Most of 
the w^orld sees onlx the brassv glare 
of \our outer self-assurance A 


Canadian knows that xou put on a 
ccK'ksurc disguise to hide a naked 
and squirming humility, that >ou 
wear a prixatc hair shirt of pun- 
tanieal conscience and wondc r to the 


point of national psvchosis whether 
\ou arc doing the right thing 
When all the private soul-search- 
ing of indixiduirfs becomes a daily 
eollectixe soul searching m Con- 
gress, when you boast of your high 
living standard and excoriate the 
materialism of the Russians; when 


you denounce socialism abroad and 
constantly expand an American 



'THE tROOBLE WITH YOV YANKS" 


^954 

socialism under other names; when 
you preach competition and keep 
tariffs on foreign goods which alone 
can pay for your exports, when 
your fiscal policies have generally 
been a tale told bv a particularly 
dangerous economic idiot — whj, 
then It IS no wonder that the world, 
quite wrongly, imagines that \ou 
never know w'hcrc \ou arc going 

The unequalled masters of ad- 
vertising, you arc the worst-adver- 
tised nation in human history You 
put a false and garish label on the 
USA Through your politics, 
films, newspapers and radio, vour 
statistics on crime, divorce and 
accidents, \ou present onlv a mon- 
strous caricature of vour own 
nature American uplift, which 
used to come across the border, 
when I was a boy, in leather bound 
books of Fmtrson and Whitman, 
now comes in a brassiere — interest 
ing, but hardl) inspiring 

Most foreigners never see anv 
thing but the caricature I was a 
full grown man, travelling with 
Wendell Willkie’s campaign tram 
when he vvus running for the Presi- 
dency in i()4(), before I found m the 
little towns and whistle stops, in the 
quiet faces ol countrv folk, in the 
sure and massive dignitv of the in- 
dividual American at home, the real 
stuff of* your countrv with the label 
off 

If they get past the label, most 
foreigners conclude that the trouble 
wifh you Yanks is your bad man- 
Jicrs^Actually your manners, though 


brash, boisterous and gaudy, arc the 
best in the world because they arc 
honest, whereas the manners of 
most countries are contrived to 
hide and distort the contents of 
the mind 

When the Washington taxi driver 
addresses the Senator in the back 
seat as «m equal, when Mrs Roose- 
velt invites a Canadian cabinet min- 
ister to dinner and cooks the ham 
and eggs with her own hands, when 
cvcTv passenger m a railway car- 
nage IS eager to tell vou his most 
private concerns — I say these arc 
good manners, since they enforce 
the basic premise of American life, 
that one man is as good as another. 
Thc\ are the proof that democracy 
lives in the American people, not 
)ust in the Constitution 

Naivete IS one of the great charms 
and one of the great troubles with 
vou Yanks ^ ou believe that ma- 
chinery, man.igement and know- 
how can make everything, and that 
anv thing made vesterday is already 
out of date Even ideas, morals, 
religion and human happiness can 
be produced bv assembly-line psy- 
chologv and mental mass-produc- 
tion Eviery season vour intellectual 
engineers produce a new theory of 
morahtv, a new machine-made 
philosophv 

Along with the machine, you 
worship the great American m)th 
of bigness Everything has to be the 
biggest in the world or it is no good. 
You forget that all the biggest 
things in human experience, in- 



THE READERS DIGEST 


Fehruarv 


luding the American dream itself, 
Jhave come from little, out-of-the- 
Vay places, from little obscure men , 
^\thdt the smallest sort of people 
Ijusually inhabit skyscrapers while 
giants of America — the Wash- 
ingtons, Lincolns and Roosevelts — 
■ were country-bred 

You have built a gigantic machine 
^ of commercial humour, but you 
,have never reallv achic\ed the abil- 
ity to laugh at \ourseKes True, 
every joke and cartoon m your 
magazines pokes fun at some aspect 
of American life. Rut always with 
the reservation that the American 
wav IS better than anv other, that it 
may be safelv lampooned on the 
surface because in substance it is 
practicallv perfect The individual 
American of the cartoon may be 
funny, yet it seldom occurs to any 
'American that the American way 
itself mav be funnv 
You Yanks, b) your own choice, 
are the most regimented people 
alive You will argue in politics and 
fight in war against regimentation, 
and vet \ou have so regimented 
your life that a traveller can hardly 
tell one American town from an 
other when all have the same 
houses, furniture, clothes, cinemas, 
automobiles and daily habits 
Once I lived on Long Island with 
a Wall Street banker who spent half 
his time cursing President Roosevelt 
for regimenting the American peo- 
ple. As he cursed he rose precisely 
at 6.30 a m , caught the same 8.10 
train to town, lunched in the same 


club at I, and returned on the 5.17 

Being an American, from Canada, 

I know that the regimentation is all 
external, that internally you are not 
only unregimented but healthily 
nonconformist, almost anarchic 
The trouble is that you have regi- 
mentation in non-essentials, but no 
discipline in essentials Without a 
new self-discipline you will never 
stop a foreign regimentation of the 
world 

The mvthologv of the United 
States never ceases to proliferate 
Yesterdav the nation was obsessed 
with the m\th of licpior as the cen- 
tral problem of societv Tudav it is 
the m\th of sex as the governing 
fact of life You scream it from the 
housetops, teach it in the schools, 
smear it on the screen, studv it in 
Kinscv reports and attempt to regu- 
late It b\ assemblv line methods 

Yet \ou still retain the contrary 
myth that Americans are morally 
better than other people, merely 
because older civilizations have ac- 
cepted the facts of life long before 
vou stumbled on them Mo 4 for- 
eigners, on the other hand, are hor- 
rihcd bv tfic voracious sexuality of 
the United States — jiaradcd like 
everything else down the centre of 
Mam Sticct— and fail to observe 
that sex excites the Americans, 
makes them write lewd wo*rds on 
fences and in books, because they 
are basically a moral people only 
just coming sexually of age. 

Then there is the towering and 
hollow myth of beauty. EWery. 



"THE TROUBLE WITH YOU YANKS'' 


^954 

American woman must be beauti- 
ful, at any cost to her looks, her 
anatomy and her husband’s purse. 
It IS a patriotic duty to be curved 
to the latest order of the engineers 
who alter the human body every 
spring. The home must be beauti- 
ful, according to the latest designs 
of the furniture makers, even if you 
don’t like it that way 

Yet American civilization is the 
ugliest ever invented by man 
Americans, including Canadians, 
have spread organized and costly 
ugliness wherever they have gone. 
They have not fashioned a single 
city worthy of the name by Euro- 
pean standards They have made 
every Mam Street a nightmare of 
peculiar dreariness. Happilv, the 
beauty of our continental landscape 
IS too big for us to ruin entirely, but 
we do our best by eroding the soil, 
burning off the trees and erecting 
our ghastly monument, the Ameri- 
can Metropolis. 

Equally powerful is the m\th of 
success, which seems to mean that 
the husband achieves a stomach 
ulcer or a caidiac condition at an 
early age to support a well-dressed 
widow and a beautiful headstone 
Yhe myth of success has lately 
spawned the thoroughly un-Ameri- 
can myth of security, exploited by 
every vote-getting politician on 
both sides of our common border — 
«s if anyone could be secure in a 
world like this, as if a man can end 
his life peacefully on the conven- 
tional Savings of $200 a month, as 


if $200 would buy groceries a few 
years hence, when the policy of the 
state is to finance painlessly by 
making the dollar worthless. 

You Yanks are dimly aware of 
these things. You worry about 
them, and on a mass scale. A huge 
industry is devoted to plumbing the 
Americ?an mind, which would be 
in perfect health if it were left alone 
for half an hour at a time. 

Now the supreme irony of the 
whole business appears. Having 
publicly pronounced your life su- 
perior to life anywhere, you are 
desperately trving to run away from 
It You revel in a celluloid dream 
life, make goddesses of film stars, 
and tear across your country on 
wheels to escape that life 

This rage to escape, the break- 
down of marriage, the consumption 
of alcohol, the incidence of insanity, 
the frantic speed of American life, 
the problem of crime and juvenile 
delinquent), all reflect a kind of 
nagging underground unhappiness 
so deep that it is hardlv recognized 
and will be indignantly denied. 

But observe the faces in an 
American bar, cinema or baseball 
stadium, then observe the faces of 
a European crowd In the towns, 
villages and fields of Europe there 
are more happy faces, apparently 
with less to be happy about, than 
you will find in all the amusement 
palaces of America. They are happy 
because they don’t expect too much. 
Expecting too much and fiercely 
pursuing it, you Yanks have lost the 



THE READER S DIGEST 


free and simple gift of contentment. 

When you finallv reconcile your- 
selves to living with the thing vou 
recommend so highly to others, you 
will find that it is almost as good as 


you advertise it to be Then perhaps 
Granny's prediction can be fulfilled 
and the world will be convinced at 
last that )Ou have grown into your 
massive breeches 


“My Great Friend Eddie” 

By Davtd Douglas Duncan, "'Lije” photographer 

7h- sioR^ iiuoKcs a famous American and a code of honour 
now nearly dead It was told me by a taxi driver in Franktort, 
Germany 

“Do you know my great friend Eddie he began “Mr Eddie 
Rickenbacker ^ I hav e nev cr met him Except once, long ago — in a 
way 

“I was a fighter pilot in one of the greatest squadrons ever to 
take to the air — Baron von Richthofen’s World War I Flying 
Circus One morning I was flying dawn patrol alone when an 
American plane attacked me As I flew under him I leaned ba<.k 
to see hn insignia My heart leapt I was fighting Rickenbacker, 
America’s greatest ace 

“We closed again for the second pass, and as vve crossed I was 
able to pull up and come out on his tail -onlv for an instant, but I 
saw splinters ilv from his wings On the third pass it happened 
again I was confident I would kill him on the fourth pass — and I 
wanted very much to kill Captain Eddie Rickenbacker 

“We closed, and I jerked the triggers Nothing happened The 
guns were jammed ’ I was defenceless As I pulled out, diving for 
the ground, I looked back — and closed my c)es Rickenbacker wns 
right on top of me I was finished and I knew it 

“I waitecf for the bullets Suddenlv I heard the wind screaming 
around my cockpit, tearing at my helmet I opened my eyc> a 
moment before the plane would have crashed, and managed to 
level off just above the treetops I looked round, and there was 
Rickenbacker flying escort to me 

“When he saw my head turn— we were wingtip to wingtip-hc 
nodded, pushed back his goggles and saluted Then he pulled up 
into a high climbing bank and flew for home He probably hated 
me as an enemy, but he had gallantly spared my life because I was 
unarmed. 

“No, I suppose you might say we have never met. But I have 
great friend in America — Eddie Rickenbacker.” * 



W* 'n« 


- ,5: yjtrt 1/ 


Ho^i/ the Earl of heagh, born to ease and luxury, became a self -mad 

social worl^er, inventor and scientist 


*1 lilHMlfV* 

11' liUjKIMUVi 


By Hartzell Spence 

tlH the Honourable Ru 

f m Bi pert Edward Cecil Lee 
m. Cumness reached the age 

of 21, his father ga\e him ^3,000,000 
and told him to set himself up in 
the social stvlc expected of the heir 
to the then barony of heagh and 
the largest fortune in Ireland The 
\oung man, howe\er, had a mind 
of his own He stood for Parliament 
for Shoreditch, and moved into a 
house there with his bride, Lady 
Gwendolen, a famous wit and 
beauty, daughter of the Earl of On- 
slow. There he got to know how 
his constituents lived 
Educated to be a gentleman, he 
knew almost nothing practical. But 
there was one way to find out to 
sec {or himself. To ’ understand 
slums, he lived in them. Since then 
his quest for knowledge has been 
a chain reaction, one inquiry lead- 
ing to another. 

Condensed fro\ 



heagh (pronounced Ivor), now a- 
blue-eved, white haired, soft-voiced 
old gentleman of 79, thus became 
in turn a social worker, inventor ‘ 
and scientist, whose stubborn in- 
quisitiveness has brought about 
revolutionarv progress in medicine, 
dairv farming and housing. In 
Ireland, however, he is known for ■ 
none of these exploits There he is 
simplv “Himself “ “Is Himself 
coming over this spring^*’ a 
Dubliner mav ask 
This Irish term of familiarity and 
respect is well earned, for heagh’s 
business means much to Ireland. He 
IS the patriarchal boss of an industry 
which IS the nation’s largest single 
enterprise, which purchases the 
produce of 80,000 acres and contri- 
butes about one-tenth of the Irish 
revenue. This enterprise is one of 
the largest breweries in Europe, 
Arthur Guinness Son & Company,^ 

Saturday Night tl i 



' THE READERS 1 >IGESt ^ ' mrimy 


'X>ublin. There is brewed the 
it known simply as Guinness. If 
customer in an Irish pub asks 
“a glass,” he gets Guinness. 
?;^Ivcagh was not born to be a 
ij^wer at all but to live down the 
t^gma of being one His father, a 
-itmarkable figure of the Edwardian 
:s{?ra* had inherited Guinness, estab- 
0 shed in 1759 By sound manage- 
.ment he coaxed millions of pounds 
sterling from the compan> and 
jUsed it for social advancement. 
Born a commoner in 1847, Edward 
* Cecil Guinness became a baronet in 
1885, a baron in 1891, a viscount in 
"1905, an earl in 1919 
' ' The first earl’s principal hoist to 
pcerag?''was his purchase of 
Kveden , a 2^000-acre rabbit war- 
[ren in the Suffolk moors The 
Maharajah of Lahore had developed 
it into the gr^cst^ private shoot in 
.England HereMic held shooting 
parties foi Edward VII, George V 
>and some of the best shots in 
"Europe. They were fantastic bird 
jfilaughterers On a single day in 
November 1912 George V and the 
set up a record bag of 3>247 
t^easant and partridge 

The present earl wanted no part 
.of such luxury After Cambridge, 
^he went to London and took charge 
■iif the Guinress Trust formed to 
^^lidminister a fund of ^200,000 given 
his father to build homes for 
Ijorking people. Every penny of 
received has been devoted 
ijie erection of new housing es- 
s, of which there are now 12 in 


the London area, besides a holiday 
home and a home for old people. 
One new property just completed is 
exclusively for widows and spinsters 
who must earn their own living. 
It IS de luxe enough for Lord 
Tveagh’s own relatives, but the 
units are let for less than 25/. a 
week. Another, for newly-weds, 
gives each tenant a garden plot and 
a penthouse-like terrace “Human 
dignit) at a profit of two per cent,” 
Iveagh describes these ventures. 

Altogether, Iveagh served in the 
House of Commons for 19 years 
When in 1927, at the age of 53, he 
inherited his title and moved to the 
House of Lords, his wife won 
Southend She was one of the first 
women Members of Parliament 
after Lady Astor. 

While he was in London Iveagh’s 
interest in rowing and sailing intro- 
duced him to hundreds of salty 
amateur yachtsmen, fishermen and 
superannuated sailors who owned 
boats He suggested to George V 
that if England were ever imperilled 
these men might come in handy and 
should be organized into a Royal 
Naval Volunteer Reserve The Lon- 
don Division of the R.N V.R , 
which he commanded, w'as raised 
largely by his own efforts At Dun- 
kirk the amateurs evacuated 33«>,ooo 
British and French soldiers in 'their 
tubs, yachts, dinghies, skiffs and 
trawlers. 

Iveagh on inheriting the title 
shared with his two brothers a 
fortune estimated at 14,000,090. 



'^HriiiSELPr the inquisitive earl 


^954 

He has increased it and today i s on e 
of jhe richest men in Britai n. 

*^The beneficiary of all this, who 
one day may become a millionaire, 
is a i6-\ ear-old grandson now at 
Eton. Lord Iveagh's onlv son was 
killed in the war. 

Iveagh’s first decision after his 
father died was to turn expensive 
Elveden into a farm He realized 
that the old wav of life was doomed 
and that food production was more 
important than record bags How- 
ever, on the dav after he ascended 
to the earldom he was recened by 
George V at Hiukingham Palace 
The King said, “I trust \ou will 
maintain the shooting at hlvcdtn 
The Queen and I will be pleased to 
visit you in October ” 

Since a roval wish was a com- 
mand Iveagh continued the bird 
breeding until George V died in 
1936 Then he began a fight as stub- 
born as any m his life to make 
those heaths, blown by moving 
sands and populated bv thousands 
ot labbits, pay their own wa\ Else- 
den is todav the largest and most 
productive general farm in Eng- 
land The great loo-room Victorian 
mansion is dark, its roomfuls of 
valuable furniture in dust covers 
while the earl lives in a five-roomed 
gardener’s cottage. 

As early as 1912 Iveagh protested 
in the House against the British 
policy of buying cheap food abroad 
at the expense of home farmers. 
“The day will come,” he said, 
“whan we shall rue it.” The day ar- 


rived in 1939, when the food urg- 
ency of Britain at war proved that 
Iveagh was right. 

Even though every inch of culti- 
vated land at Elveden must be deep- 
fenced against rabbits and anchored 
against creeping sands, Iveagh had 
bv this year 10,000 acres in produc- 
tion, with an annual yield of 300,000 
gallons of milk, 1,700 tons of sale- 
able cereal grains, 7,500 tons of beef, 
1,000 Iamb carcasses, 7,500 tons of 
sugar beet Now Iv eagh is embarked 
on a new crusade He contends that 
England has 800,000 acres of waste- 
land no wor^c than Elveden was, 
and he wants these marginal tracts 
put into profitable production to 
teed England’s millions 

Iveagh’s inventiveness and thrift 
would be remarkable even in a poor 
man One dav, observing the burn- 
ing of brush and weeds, he won- 
dered whether thev, like the straw 
in manure, could be used to enrich 
the soil He took this question to a 
young biochemist later to be world- 
acclaimed, the late Sir Almroth 
Wright With a voung chemist 
named E H Richards, he con- 
ducted thousands of experiments to 
reproduce chemically the effect of 
animal droppings on plant life The 
secret learned, Iveagh organized a 
company to manufacture Adco, 
known to every gardener as the 
additive which turns garden rubbish 
heaps into soil-cnrichmg manure. 

On the farm Iveagh was bothered 
by hay fever When his doctor told 
him there was no known cure, he 



TItiE KEAUEK'S U^ES^f 


4»iet up a laboratory at Saint Mary’s 
llJHospital, London, to study the 
’Iwoblem, emplovmg Wright and a 
^jpromising \oungster named Alex- 
ander Fleming In this, the Wrigbt- 
’Flcming Institute, of which I\eagh 
has been chairman for a quarter of 
‘a century, the antibiotics were pion- 
eered Fleming, now Sir Alexander, 
is known as the disco\erer of peni- 
cillin. 

At the hospital heagh learned 
that milk sold in England was 
tainted with ho\inc tuberculosis 
bacilli He undertook a 20- v ear cam- 
paign to clean up England’s milk 
In the process be had to endow an 
agricultural college, and spend a 
fortune dc\ eloping a pilot farm on 
which to prove the social \alue of 
TB-tested cattle plus sanitarv con- 
ditions Now 55 per cent oI all milk 


sold in England is from TB-frec 
herds, although when Iveagh began 
the campaign there was not one 
such herd in Britain 
Since his elevation to the House 
of Lords, Iveagh attends parlia- 
mentary sessions only when one of 
his owm enthusiasms is under chal- 
lenge In 25 years he has made just 
one speech, and that of onlv five 
words A bill was under debate to 
eliminate hoardings along the roads 
“Evcr\ where 1 go,” proclaimed 
an indignant peer, “I am unable to 
see our beautiful English countrv- 
sidc tor the hoardings alleging that 
‘Ciuinness is good for \ou 
T he sencrable eail, his Irish dan- 
der up, red of face under his plati- 
num-white hair, rose to his led 
“(jiiinness /v good for \ou*” lie 
shouted, and sat down 




Latin Lesson 

THAI American tourist^ art more Iialy-conscious than ever, the 
Italians arc naturally getting more conscious ot the Americans Here are 
some of the things Italians arc saying these days ^ 

A hotel di)€Ltoi on the Giand Canal in Venue “Why do Americans 
live so much in the future^ We Italians pluck pleasure from each 
moment ” 


A '^culptof at the Accudemia di BeUe Am in Florence “Americans 
wish for too much One wish is enough for me — happiness ” 

An Italian toiuist guide in Sonento “When do Americans ha\e time 
to reflect^ That’s w'hercm dreams are born ” 

• 

A bar -tender in a Florentine wineshop “Wine increases the enjoyment 
of food and consersation Too many Americans drink not for enjoyment, 
but to lose ihcmseKts “ 


A medical student in Perugia “Americans arc childlike They doubt 
They know how to do things, but they don’t always know* 


— Mar> Dick in New York limes Maga^e 



There are exciting thrills in star- 
gazing through inexpensive 
telescopes 


ODTOF 

THIS 

WORLD 

★ 


B\ Wayne Amo^ 

D complctelv out of this world. 

All I have to do is go out in 
mv back garden, peek into a black 
tube, and suddenly I am out in 
space, exploring the rings ot Saturn, 
following four diamofid-hke moons 
round Jupiter or tracing the moun- 
tains and “seas’' ot our own moon. 

Mv telescope cost less than a 
radio set It works on the same prin- 
ciple as the world’s largest telescope 
on Mt Palomar in Calitornia. Light 
from a star is picked up b\ a con- 
cave mirror at the lower end ot the 
tube This mirror rcflects.a magni- 
ficcl image of the star back up to a 
small, flat mirror placed diagonally 


inside the tube near the front end. 

I look at this image through an 
eyepiece which fits into the side of 
the tube The cvcpiece magnifies 
the image 6o times In the daytime 
I can read a pocket watch a quarter 
of a mile away 

All the amateur astronomers I 
have talked to sa\ that their new 
awareness of the vastness of the 
universe and ot the astonishipg 
beautv of the heavenly bodies has 
made them more humble, more 
tolerant— and happier Thev con- 
fess to a hcalthv loss ot vanity and 
a more comtortablc tceling towards 
the world A piotessional astron- 
omer at the Havden Planetarium in 
New \ ork told me there arc no 
atheists among his colleagues — they 
are torced to i)elieve in an infinite 
power 

I know what thev mean These 
adventures into space are incredibly 
moving One evening recently an 
old triend came over )ust as I was 
about to go out inU; the garden, and 
I dragged him along The moon 
was a silver shav ing — perfect for ob- 
serving through a telescope When 
It IS full It is too bright In cicseent, 
when the sun lights it from the side, 
the details come out sharply. 

As 1 focused mv telescope, the 
moon’s craters and mountains came 
out in bold relief Again I thrilled 
to see the tremendous ball hanging 
in space, with no means of support 
except its centrifugal force outwards 
balanced by the pull of gravity from 


Condensed from The American Magastne 



It seems to be srjndmg 
still, but actuallv it is whirling 
round the earth at the rate of 2,304 
miles an hour 

When I turned the view over to 
my guest, he gasped and said, “I can 
almost reach out and touch it’” 
This was exactly how^ I felt the 
first time I saw the moon in a tele 
scope. It changes suddenK from a 
lovely two-dimensional light to 
what it really is — a three-dimen- 
sional sphere You feel you can 
almost hold it in your hands 
My favourite planet is Jupiter, a 
glowing pearl with six or seven dark 
stripes round it Near it — where 
you see nothing but dark sky with 
the naked eye— are usually four of 
Jupiter’s 12 moons, all looking like 
little diamonds. They go round 


Vehrmry 

Jupiter at different 
speeds. The fastest 
does It in two days, the 
slowest in 17. When 
we first looked we 
could see only three 
moons, but when we 
turned back to it an 
hour later a fourth had 
appeared from behind 
the planet 

Stars are glowing 
suns which give out a 
light of their own 
They are inconceivablv 
far awa\ If \ou think 
of our sun as the size 
of a dot over a letter 
”1,” the next nearest 
sun IS the dot over an- 
other letter ‘h” ten miles uwu\ The 
planets are much closer — right in 
the back garden by compinson 
Like the earth, thev move round 
our sun, thev do not glow like the 
stars but reflect the light horn the 
sun 

When you really get to know 
stars you can fiecome a member of 
a World-Wide team of amateurs who 
are acti\el\ helping the professional 
astronomeis Amateurs send in re- 
ports about meteors, the moon, the 
“northern Lghts,” and about stars 
which vary in lirightness Thou- 
sands of stars grow bright, then 
dim, then bright again, in periods 
of time varying from a few hours 
to several months Scientists still 
don’t know exactly why 
There’s always the chance, <00, . 


REAVERS DIGEST 


Interest in amateur astronomy keeps on grow- 
ing Before the war, the main amateur society in 
Great Britain, the British Astronomical Associa- 
tion, had a membership of only 800 Now this has 
risen to 2,500 and members are drawn from all 
over the world 

Monthly meetings art held at Burlington 
House, Piccadilly (the Hcadcjuarters of the Royal 
Astronomical Society), and there is a library 
available tor members’ use, and a collection ot 
astronomical lantern slides and ii.strumcnts tor 
loan A monthly journal is also circulated, and 
early news ot dis».o\ erics re^xirud in a special pub- 
lication Branches ot the \ssociarion ha\c been 
opened in the pro\inces, and in Commonwealth 
countries, and th^ie are some 50 smaller societies 
in affiliation as well 

The Assoeiation (which was fornuel in iSijo) 
welcomes as members all w'ho are interested in 
astronomy Inquiries should be made to tlu 
Assistant Secrctarv, ^03, Bath Road, Hounslow 
West, Middlesex 



OUT OF THIS WORLD 


^954 

that an amateur may make an im- 
portant discovery. The late Will 
Hay, the famous film and stage 
comedian, and a member of the 
British Astronomical Association, 
discovered a new white spot on 
Saturn in 1931. Nearly all of the 
newly discovered stars have been 
found by amateurs, for the reason 
that they sweep the skies, while 
professionals concentrate on par- 
ticular points 

One of the fascinating things in 
the sky and one that frightens me 
a little, too, IS the faint glow, visible 
to the naked eye, in the constella- 
tion of Andromeda In the glass it 


leaps out as a luminous glow thtf 
seems to come from b^ind the 
farthest stars. It is actually the glow 
from another universe — an^ct 
galaxy of millions of stars like ouip 
own Milky Way system — ^and it 19 
1,612,000 light-years away. 

The really staggering thing istlu^ 
professional astronomers say there 
are more than 100 million such 
galaxies that they can see. Not only 
that, but they can discern no thiur 
ning out anywhere, e\cn with the 
Palomar telescope, which reaches 
out into space more than two thour 
sand million light-years Space and 
stars seem to go on and on for ever. 


Ad-V entures 

Job-wanted ad in an Edmonton, Alberta, paper ‘ Back East 
they say, ‘Go West, young man ’ Well, I’m here. Now whatf^” 

—UP 

Ad in the New York Times “Will sell one Opera Seat, sub- 
senpuon, second row orchestra. Monday evenings, very accessible 
to exit.” —The Woman 

From Your Wee\ly Guide to Cape Cod “argyle sock finisher 
— You begin ’em, I finish ’em You get the credit Confidenual.” 

From the Bremen, Indiana, Enquirer “wanted — man to work 
eight hours daily, five days a week, to replace one who didn’t ” 

For-sale ad m the Wayne, Pennsylvania, Suhufban and Wayne 
Times “Complete 30-volume set Encyclopaedia. New 1948. Never 
used — ms wife knows everything ” 


two prospective mothcrs-in-law meet, it’s like a meeting 
between two horse traders ; each one suspicious of what the other 

is unloading. — Marcelene Cox m Ladies ’ Home Journal 




Quick Way to Catch Ciooks 


|ici 


JT Fred Doane, of the 
Detective Bureau, Los 


S 

A Angeles Police Depart- 

iMit, was discouraged with his 
m of tracking down the forgers 
iad bad-cheque passers who were 
olttimizing his area. Doane and his 
i|j^eagues usually knew whom to 
tifsk for; they had pictures and 
jij^rpnnts, for most of the crooks 
professionals. The problem 
IN to spot them among the 4,500,- 
N people in the area The odds 
against the handful of police 
‘ ’ icd to the job. 

ief, we need more eyes,” 
LC told the head ot the detective 
one day. “I bet we could get 
of citizens to help us if we 
the crooks’ mugs on tclc- 
scrcens,’* 


By Frank J Taylor 



His chief told Doane to see if 
the local TV stations would help 
Most TV people wanted to do so, 
Doane found, but they feared suits 
for libel or invasion of privacy 
One station, however, agreed to 
drop “Doane’s mugs” into an every- 
morning programme 

An officer was detailed as nar 
rator to describe the “Suspects 
Wanted” as the rogues’ gallery 
photos were flashed on the screen 
He summarized briefly the suspects’ 
criminal records, giving their aliases 
and habits. The pictures included, 
besides forgers, suspects wanted for 
burglary, car theft, narcotics traffic, 
homicide. A warrant had been is- 
sued for the arrest of each. 

The first broadcast was on Janu- 
ary 2, 1950. “Suspects Wanted” has 


Condensed from Banking 



QVICIK. way to CATCii CROOKS /9 


run five times a week ever since. 
Six different police officers have 
served as narrators. Surveys indi- 
cate that 300,000 TV fans watch 
the programmes each month. 

Two minutes after one bad- 
cheque passer’s photo had appeared, 
a housewife telephoned to the police 
and said, “If you’ll go to the meat 
market at Crenshaw and Exposition 
boulevards, you’ll find your man 
working behind the counter ” 
\\ithin 30 minutes the forger was 
in ]ail. 

After “Suspects Wanted” had 
broadcast the pictures of two young 
men who had escaped from prison 
and gone on a car-stealing, kidnap- 
ping and robbery spree, a phone 
call tipped off the police that the 
men were heading north Later that 
day they were over- 
taken. 


advised' by an anonymous phone 
call that she could be found at a cer- 
tain address in Hollywood. When 
the officers drove up they found 
suitcases on the front porch. The 
suspect answered the doorbell, ex- 
pecting to step into a taxi; instead, 
she stepped into the police car. 

An unexpected return from the 
programme is the number of sus- 
pects who give themselves up after 
seeing their faces on the screen. 
There was a woman who with an 
accomplice held up a grocery store, 
beat the cashier and escaped with a 
sizeable haul of cash. After she was 
featured on the programme, calls 
came in from several bars where she 
had been seen But, while police 
were combing that area, she surren- 
dered to the sheriff in another town. 


An alert waitress 
who was a “Suspects 
Wanted” fan spotted 
another pair of escaped 
bad men in a small 


The Manchester Guardian of October ?, 1953, 
gave this report 

“The picture of a man whom the police investi- 
gating a murder wish to interview was televised 
by the BBC last night It was the first time that 
the BBC Television Service had been called in to 


town restaurant. The 
waitress jotted down 
their licence number, 
then called the police. 
A Highway Patrol 
soon captured them. 
Occasionally the 
catch IS made with a 
typical film finish. 
After broadcasting that 
a certain woman was 
wanted for passing bad 
cheque^ police were 


assist Scotland Yard in a murder inquiry 

“The picture was of William Pettit, whom Scot- 
land Yard desired to interview in connection with 
Its inquiries into the murder of Mrs Rene Agnes 
Brown, aged 48, of Eltham, who was found 
stabbed to death in a field at Chislehurst, Kent, 
on September 10 The photograph was trans- 
mitted after the Television newsreel ’’ 

The BBC say they have been willing to tele- 
vise photographs on similar grounds since 1950, 
but fhis was the first time that they had been 
asked by Scotland Yard to do so It is 43 years 
since wireless was first used in a murder 
case — that of Crippen, who was on board ship, 
heading for America 



20 


THE EEADER*S DIGEST 


can’t stand seeing my picture 
on TV,” she said. 

Another unexpected advantage 
of “Suspects Wanted” is its power 
to make families talk. Previously, 
when officers asked the whereabouts 
of a wanted son or daughter, 
families would usually freeze up. 
They don’t any more. 

“It’s a great weapon,” said Ser- 
geant Doanc. “All we have to say 
is, ‘If you don’t help us we’ll put 
him on TV’; and thev usually reply, 
‘Give us until tomorrow and we’ll 
bring him in.’ ” 

A third unanticipated return is 
the good relations the programme 
has brought about between the 
police and the public Southern Cali- 
fornians now feel that they have 
been admitted behind the scenes in 
the drama of law enforcement. 
There is increasing willingness to 


help police do their job. When the 
programme started, most inform- 
ants phoned in anonymously, 
whereas now more than half give 
their names and addresses, which 
are treated as confidential. No in- 
formant is ever called into court as a 
witness. 

A broadcast may bring no tips at 
all, or It may result in as many as 
6 o phone calls. Police check them 
all. No rewards are offered. “Why 
should anyone be paid for helping 
protect his own community?” asks 
Doane. 

Los Angeles detectives guess that 
almost 1,000 crooks have been ar- 
rested as a result of having their 
“mugs” flashed on the screen. “A 
policeman can’t be any more effec- 
tive than his information,” says 
Doane “This is the best means we 
know to increase his information.” 


From the Bottom of T heir Hearts 

O . AN American broadcast, Yul Brynncr, star of The King and /, 
reminisced about when the late Gertrude Lawrence was playing Anna * 
Summer before last, during a terrific heat wave in New York, the p’-o- 
ducers had an air-conditioning machine installed in Gertrude Lawrence’s 
dressing-room She couldn’t stand the idea of being comfurtable herself 
while the girls in the show suffered from the heat, so, at her own expense, 
she had a big air-conditioner put la their dressing-room 
One night in the scene where I, as the King, summon all my wives to 
show Anna how well they look in their European-style dresses and how 
they’ll impress the British Ambassador, 1 noticed that as they bowed to 
me Gertrude, on the opposite side of the stage, was fighting to keep from 
laughing. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. 

Afferwards I learned the grateful girls had taken lipstick and written 
across their underpants, one letter to a girl, “we love you.’* As dyy 
bowed to me, their cresses flew up at the back and flashed the message to 
GcfUsude. ^ 




Condensed from the French monthly Rcalites Andre Vtsson 


P ORTUGAL WAS the birthplace of 
some of the world’s greatest 
navigators— Ciomes, da Gama, Ma- 
gellan, who in the 15th and i6th 
centuries discovered so many of the 
then unknown lands in Africa, 
Asia and America It was not until 
after World ^^'ar 1 that those great 
ex^norers of modern times, Euro- 
pean and American tourists, began 
to find their way into “Europe’s 
garden-on-the-sea” in any numbers. 

The way ^ou reach Lisbon— 
Portugal’s capital and one of the 
world’s most beautiful harbours— 
will determine )Our first impression 
of the country. 

Coming by sea, you land in a col- 
ourful iSth-century city. The im- 
mense plaza fronting the harbour is 
bordered by government buildings, 


where ancient palaces used to stand. 
In the background, Lisbon’s seven 
hills are dotted with more palaces, 
churches and houses in a s\mphony 
of [lastel shades— tender blue, pale 
ochre, pigeon mauve, honey yellow, 
carmine pink It is such a perfect 
setting for an old-time opera that 
you are surprised to see modern 
motor traffic directed by white- 
helmeted policemen. 

If you arrive bv plane, you 
drop into a 20th-century Portugal. 
Everything is modern, light and 
spacious the comfortable airfield 
waiting rooms, the big buses that 
bring you in a few minutes to the 
centre ot the town; the broad 
avenues with their attractive houses, 
colourful flower beds and fountains 
of sober elegance. 


21 



THE READER S DOSES I 


rcaruary 


But when you cross from Spam 
Slnto Portugal by car or train, you 
l^tcr the really “old country,” you 
!;«ec the truK distincti\e personality 
the land Though Spain and 
^^‘Rortugal are closely related geo- 
graphicallv and racially, their land- 
' scapes, villages, churches, people are 
vastly diflerent In Portugal every- 
thing IS softer, milder, more re- 
laxed Above all, the countryside is 
a lush green 

For “Europe’s garden-on-the-sea” 
is not just poetic imagery Ninety 
per cent of Portugal’s 35,000 square 
miles IS covered with verdure, the 
gift of the moisture-laden winds of 
the Atlantic, whose waters wash the 
500-mile coastline More than 2,700 
varieties of trees, shrubs and flow- 
ers grow here Those native to 
northern Europe flourish side bv 
side with those from the Mediter- 
ranean countries and even from 
. North Africa But there are almost 
a hundred which can be found only 
in Portugal (One of the hardest 
things to find in Portugal, however, 
is a flower shop. With flowers all 
round them, the people do not feel 
the need to buy them ) 


A NATION\L FEATURE of the 

Portuguese is a pleasant Old World 
courtesy In the shops every cus- 
tomer, however humble, is ad- 


dressed ^^Vossa Excelenaa (Your 
'Excellency)”; and the ticket collcc- 
' tor on the ferry crossing the Tagus 


(pids you a gracious '"toa viagem 
voyage)” as he punches your 


ticket. Everyone is polite without 
being servile; everyone has a 
natural dignity without arrogance. 

W^hether in country or city, you 
are left in no doubt that Portugal 
is a man’s world. On the roads 
the women carry all kinds of loads 
on their heads — baskets of vege- 
tables, bundles of laundry, furni- 
ture, mattresses, even coffins — while 
the men ride on their donkeys or 
walk beside the women, hands in 
pockets 

Familiar figures in the streets of 
Lisbon are the va}ina^, the dark- 
eyed, dark-skinned fishwives, who 
get their name from the fishing 
village of Ovar, believed to have 
been founded thousands of vears 
ago by the Phcenicians Balancing 
the heavy baskets ot silvery fish on 
their heads, thev move gracefully 
among the crowds, obliv lous of the 
women in Parisian gowns and 
American nylons It is only recently 
that the Lisbon police have imposed 
upon them the wearing of shoes 
But as soon as they are out of the 
big city they take them off and 
sling them on their heads 

In the open-air cafes along Lis- 
bon’s Avenida da Liberdade, bor- 
dered by acacias, palms and profuse 
flowers, you see almost no women. 
Men, however, take their leisure 
here from early morning until late 
at night, sipping their black coffee, 
enjoying their sherbet and having 
their shoes polished to mirror-hkc 
perfection. 

A woman cannot vote unless thi 



19S4 ’ FOnWGAL--^EUROmS GARDEN ^ONTHE-SE A 


death of her husband has made her 
head of the family; in the upper 
levels she cannot select her own 
husband; she‘ cannot open a bank- 
ing account or apply for a passport 
without the husband’s authoriza- 
tion. The wife of a high official 
who had been hurt in a motor ac- 
cident in Spain could not join him 
because he was in a coma and thus 
unable to endorse her passport ap- 
plication A few \oung women 
ha\e expressed their urge for in- 
dependence by driving their own 
cars And a few girls from good 
families e\en go so far as to declare 
that, regardless of what their parents 
mav think the) will choose their 
husbands themselves 

Tins IS a land of superb old 
churches The most striking — 
Tomar, Batalha, Alcoba^a, Jeroni- 
mos — present an astounding array 
of columns twisted like nautical 
cables, of mammoth shells, giant 
anchors, globes encircled by coils 
of rope, and other extras agantl) 
sculptured decorations running like 
tropical creepers along windows, 
portals and arches It is the exuber- 
ant st\le of navigators intoxicated 
by the memories of their travels to 
fabulous lands, and of poets carried 
away by their imagination 

The red tile roofs curved like 
those of Chinese pagodas remind us 
that Portugal was the first Western 
nation to open trade with China 
Aziulejos — the polychrome glazed 
tiles ^decorating patios, reception 


rooms and often outside walls— are 
a legacy of four centuries of oc- 
cupation by the Arabs. Azulejos 
were originally inspired by ancient 
Oriental rugs, whose elaborate de- 
signs and rich colours were skilfully 
reproduced on tile by Portuguese 
craftsmen Later the deep blue- 
and-white of Chinese pottery was 
adopted After six or seven cen- 
turies azulejO( arc still used in the 
decoration of Portuguese houses and 
public buildings 

At the extrwcf of every Portu- 
guese town of anv importance is 
a circular building — the bull ring 
Unlike the Spaniards, the Portu- 
guese do not kill their bulls, after 
the totoeiro has proved his skill 
bv piercing the hide of the bull 
with four pairs of gaily festooned 
handaiilha^, the fight is over Since 
the harassed animal is generally 
unaware of tnis, however, cows 
are brought in to lure him out of 
the ring 

The oldest of Portugal’s three 
universities — and one of the oldest 
in Europe — is in Coimbra, a 
picturescjue pink - and - white city 
perched on a steep hill in the 
centre of Portugal It was founded 
at the end of the 13th century. 
Here the students wear skimpy 
black frock coats and wide one- 
piccc capes that fall in big folds, 
with bottoms unhemmed When- 
ever a young man falls in love 
with a girl, he slashes the bottom 



E HEADER'S DIGEST Febr^ 


df his cape with a penknife By the 
time his years of study are finished, 
Mhc cape is completely tattered * 

I The proldest people in Portu- 
"gal are the 300,000 inhabitants of 
Oporto, Portugal’s second largest 
city, which lent its name to both 
the country and one of the most 
famous wines in the world. In 
Portuguese the two words O Porto 
mean The Harbour Oporto is 
Portugal’s oldest cit\, believed to 
have been founded bv Greek settlers 
in 2,000 B c For centuries its people 
have been Portugal’s money-makers 
In the Middle Ages no Portuguese 
nobleman was allowed to settle in 
Opiorto unless he wxnt into some 
trade. The ancient small kingdom 
surrounding the city of Oporto grew 
into the great colonial empire of 
Portugal, still the world’s fourth 
largest 

Oxen still transport all kinds of 
loads on Portugal’s roads, work in 
the fields and even in the sea In the 
ancient fishing village of Na/arc, 
when the picturesque boats — their 
slim prows and sterns raised like the 
cusps of a new moon and decorated 
with gaily coloured designs — return 
in the evening with the day’s catch, 
the oxen pull the heavy boats out of 
the ocean on to the beach. 

The return from fishing at 
Nazare is a unique sight. The bare- 
footed fishermen and their sons are 
'all dressed alike :n woollen blouses 
of brown-green-yellow tartan, and 


trousers rolled to the knees — a 
garb worn here for generations. 
Their headgear is a woollen stock- 
ing cap, the end falling to the 
shoulder, in which they keep their 
tobacco and matches. The young 
women wear mostly woollen skirts 
and blouses of the same tartan as 
the men The older ones wrap 
themselves in wide black capes that 
arc attached to the head bv a black 
felt hat, fkil as a pancake The 
capes fall to their bare feet, giving 
them the appearance of giant bats 

Old and voung take an active 
part in drawing in the catch, weigh- 
ing It, and carrving a wav the wet 
nets and hampers full of turbot, 
pollock, ccK, mackerel, whitings 
and sardines — Portugal’s staple food 

West 01 Lisbon, running for 
20 miles, IS the Costa do Sol — 
Portugal’s Rivicra It is the most 
elegant and most visited region in 
the country It has everv thing to 
attract the Portuguese and the for- 
eigners beaches, fishing villages, 
attractive villas clinging to the 
eucalvptus- and pine-clad hills, 
modern hotels, golf courses, casinos, 
night clubs, as well as the romantic 
mountain range of Cintra, with its 
luxuriant gardens 

Many wel'-to-do Lisbonese have 
their summer homes here, 'or live 
here all the year round. It is a region 
of old Portuguese palaces without 
kings and of exiled kings without 
palaces. Umberto of Italy; Don 
Juan of Spain, Pretender to the. 





vacant throne of his country; the 
Count of Pans, Pretender to the 
non-existent throne of France, all 
maintain here comfortable though 
not palatial homes Even Dom 
Duarte Nuno de Bragan^a, Pre- 
tender to the aboil ‘ihed throne of 
Portugal, IS a frequent visitor 
A winding road along the shore 
leads to Cabo da Roca, Europe’s 
most westerly point The umbrella- 
shaped pine and eucalyptus trees, 
with their heady fragrance, give 
way to heather and strange low 
plants whose hard sulphur-yellow 
blooms resist the strong ocean 
winds Then these, too, disappear 
Nothing but bare, stony land And 
on the left, between ocean and 
road, a sea of dunes 
You stop at one of the unpre- 
tentious eating places along this 
road The dining-room is low and 
poorly lit, but the sole and the 
lobster are exceptionally tasty, the 
wine is light, cool and dry With 
the strong, black Portuguese cotTce 


the owner presses on you a juniper 
cordial — on the house. It is grow- 
ing dark A song arises above the 
noise of the wind outside It is the 
Portuguese facio — fate, the burden 
of destiny It y ibrates with anguish 
and nostalgia It is tender, senti- 
mental and heartbreaking The 
high-pitched lament of the guitar 
keeps up an insistent throbbing 
Another song follows — the ^au- 
dade, a song of eyen greater nos- 
talgia, a song of eternal regret. 
It was from here, centuries ago, 
that the caravels of bold navigators 
sailed to discover fabulous lands in 
the Americas and Asia It was from 
here that many Portuguese emi- 
grated to Brazil — a land once be- 
longing to Portugal — or to their 
great colonies in Africa 
This sad word saitdades who in- 
vented it^ It was a mother’s fare- 
well to her beloved son going away. 
It IS only when you liave left 



derstand its meaning 


ENiAL OLD Professor Blackie, with his handsome features and hair 
falling in ringlets about his shoulders, was a picturesc]ue figure in Edin- 
burgh streets One day he was accosted by a very dirty little bootblack 
“Shine your shoes, sir?” 

The professor, impressed by the dirtiness of the boy’s face, said. “I 
don’t want a shine, my boy, but if you’ll go and wash your face. I’ll give 
you sixpence ” 

“A’ ncht, sir,” the boy replied He went to a fountain nearby, per 
formed his ablutions, and returned The professor beamed 
“Well, my boy, you have earned your sixpence Here it is*” 

“I dinna want it,” returned the boy with dignity “Ye can keep it and 
^Ct your hair cut !” —John de Morgan, /*i Lighter Vttn (Elder) 



I'O l^il 
MyHUSfiANO 
10 MARRY AGAIN 

By Eileen Moiris 

I I SHoi’LD DIF, rd want my 
husband to marrv again — 
just as soon as he could win a woman 
willing to tolerate his drising and 
his jokes. 

Man\ of m\ friends disagree with 
me Snapped one, “The thought of 
some strange woman running my 
house, taking o\cr mv loveh things 
and King in m\ bed makes me see 
red*” There is an unreasonable 
longing in most women's hearts 
that their lose should be enough 
I’m not saving a man should rush 
to the altar with the first ureamboat 
who appears on the horizon But I 
am asking for common sense, for an 
end to the twisted thinking that sa\s 
a man must not remarr) “out of 
consideration” for his dead wife. 

“Of course the question would 
not arise,” one stiffish matron told 
me “John is already 53 I should 
hope he would remember his age ” 
Let’s face facts old age no longer 
means sitting safe in the chimney 
corner, rocking the years away It is 

2^ Condensed ft 


a happy, useful life into the 70s and 
80s. At 53 John still has a lot of liv- 
ing ahead — why shouldn’t he want 
the benefits of love and companion- 
ship in his later years? 

Let’s be realistic the normal, 
healthy life involves a partner. No 
matter how well-liked, the widower 
is a fifth wheel, left out of social 
gatherings he would attend if mar- 
ried. Trivial as these things seem, 
they deepen his sense of isolation 
And I want my husband to be 
happy 

The man who marries again pays 
his first wife a great compliment ^f 
he wants to marry a second time, he 
must have liked marriage. 

rd want my husband to marry 
again so that he would have fresh 
purpose to his life I'd want him to 
have someone to listen to his dreams 
and disappointments An amiable 
woman who could make his favour- 
ite dishes and remember where he 
left the car keys 

If we have children I hope even 
more that my husband will re- 
marrv A child needs a family home 
with a father and mother who love 
him and each other The absence of 
either parent is a handicap that can 
cripple a personality. 

In the words of your marriage 
vows you promised to love, honour 
and cherish till death us^ do part. 
The marriage covenant does not, 
therefore, rob the surviving partner 
of the opportunity of building a* 
new, enduring second marriage. 

n Chatelaine 




t left Chicago a smouldering r 
e of London 


ard of Flames 


Bv Emmett Dcdmon 

HE FIREMEN of Chicdgo’s Little Giaut 
fire compan\ were near exhaustion 
when their equipment was finally put 
away at dusk that Sunday, October 8, 1871, 
For 17 hours rhev had been fighting what 
the newspapers headlined as “The Great 
Conflagration " Damage, extending over' 
four blocks of the W’est Side, had amounted 
to nearly a million dollars 
Now, at 9 15, came another alarm. The 
fireman on dutv in the watchtower saw 
flames leaping towards the sky about six 
blocks north of the station hDuse Theured 
engine compain set out for the blaze as 
soon as the horses could be harnessed. They 
did not return for 25 long hours during 
which the \er\ heart of Chicago was 
destro\ed In one of the mos»- disastrous 
fires of all time — w^orsc than the great fires 
of London* (i66h) and Moscow (1812) — 
17,450 homes wcic burned, some 300 lives 
lost, 98,000 people left homeless, and 
property worth $200,000,000 — one-third- 
ot the city’s wealth — was demolished. 
Spectacular fires had not been uncom- 

• The Fire of I ondon vhich destroyed St PauT» 
C'athedral, the Guildhall the RonjI Ext hinge the Cus^ 
toms House, 44 Halls of the City Companies and 87 
parish churches, also humid drwn IJ,200 houses and 
- -r mrni ^ ~ itndercd homrkss SO 000 pcopU 

Condenstd fiom'“^abu^s Chicago,” copyright J9S^ by Ennrult Dedtnon V 

and published hy liandom House, iVtu’ \otk 





THE READERS DIGEST February 


ihon in Chicago. To house its rapid 
th — the population had leapt 

m 4,000 to 300,000 between 1840 
and 1870 — the city had built two- 
diirds of Its 60,000 buildings of 
wood. And now the city was drv as 
Xinder for months scant ram had 
fallen. 

The Little Giant company fol 
{owed the beacon of fire to Dc 
Koven Street, where thev found 
two barns, a pamtshop and three 
sheds burning hercelv And, in this 
area of closelv built cottages and 
shanties, the\ also found Peg Leg 
Sullivan, blackened and singed, 
leaning on the neck of a badlv 
frightened calf he had rescued from 
a barn at the cost of his peg leg 
The calf belonged to Mrs Patrick 
O’Leary, who said that a cow had 
kicked over a lamp when she had 
gone to get some salt for an ailing 
animal. 

The Little Giant firemen were 
puzzled that it took other compan 
ies so long to arrive The city’s cen- 
tral fire watcher, stationed in the 
Court House tower, had seen the 
flames but had misjudged their loca- 
tion by more than a mile and a 
faulty signal had gone out Mean- 
while, the blaze from the O’Leary 
barn increased and began moving 
swiftly northwards, urged along by 

furious south-west gale. 

Suddenly a mass of burning ma- 
terial whirled four blocks through 
the an to the steeple of St. Paul’s 
Roman Catholic Church. Flames 
loon enveloped the building, spread 


through an adjoining factory and 
into Batcham’s saw mill near the 
west bank of the Chicago River. 
There the fire feasted on half a 
million feet of timber and three- 
quarters of a million shingles. 

All the city’s fire fighting equip- 
ment was now mobilized, fighting 
three separate fires that had got 
out of control two columns of 
flame mo\ mg northwards from the 
O’Leary fire and the inferno at 
Bateham’s saw mill 

Unpredictablv, the fire struck east 
of the n\er where the Parmelee 
Stage Company had ]ust completed 
a new stable It was unoccupied, but 
the lotts were filled with hav On 
this target dropped a mass of blazing 
wood that had been carried nearly 
a quarter of a mile bv the wind 
Soon the gasworks were afire An 
heroic watchman prevented an ex 
plosion bv transferring the gas to 
tanks on the North Side — but this 
put out every light on the South 
Side Now the situation was des- 
perate, the fire was at the heart of 
the city 

At midnight Mayor Roswell 
Mason wired other cities for help 
In Milwaukee, St Louis and Cin- 
cinnati, fire engines were loaded on 
railway trucks to be rushed to 
Chicago. 

As the moon rose dully through 
the pall of smoke it became clear 
that a fire break would be needed. 
James Hildreth, a former alderman, 
got permission. His zeal was greater 
than his skill and his first effort in 



OF FL4MES 


/ BUZZ A RD 

the Union National Bank merely 
blew out Its windows 

The blaze continued its capricious 
leaps A brand landed in the C^ourt 
House cupola, and flames soon 
spread to the lower floors The bell 
began tolling, rung by an automatic 
mechanism Prisoners in the gaol 
on the ground level screamed to be 
released All were given their free- 
dom except the accused murderers, 
who were led handcufTed to the 
shore of Lake Michigan Fmallv the 
*bcll stopped ringing, the building 
had collapsed 

As the pace of the fire increased, 
the new 500-room Grand Pacific 
Hotdl and the ec]uall\ new red- 
carpeted Bigelow ^^otel were con- 
sumed The Tremont House also 
went up in flames, for the third 
time in its history 

The Tremont House manager, 
John Drake, provided a remarkable 
example of faith Hurrving along 
the street with the money salvaged 
from the hotel safe, he strode into 
the Michigan Avenue Hotel, which 
was directly in the path of the 
flames, and startled the manager by 
offering to buy the hotel’s lease and 
furniture The distraught proprietor 
could not believe Drake was serious, 
so Drake handed him $1,000 as an 
advance j^ayment, then called on 
guests to witness his writteii agree- 
ment to buy — if the hotel survived 
'The Michigan Avenue Hotel sur- 
vived, and Drake later bought it 

With five separate conflagrations 
now Jighting the sky almost to 


29 

the brilliancy of daylight, the new 
waterworks building — the pride of 
Chicago — went up in flames. All 
Its pumps were destroyed There 
was no more water for the city's fire 
hoses except where it could be 
pumped from the river 

The streets were gorges of push- 
ing, struggling mobs, trying des- 
perately to save something which 
would provide the basis for a new 
start Adding to the confusion were 
maddened animals which dashed 
about in a torture of pain from the 
red bli/zards of hot cinders Looters 
were smashing store windows and 
snatching what thev could 

While hysterical women dragged 
large trunks along the pavements, 
other folk sought out eveiv avail- 
able wheelbarrow, express wagon 
or cart to haul goods to safety One 
wagon driver was' given $1,000 to 
haul awMv a bank's currency, 
f louseholders made hurried at- 
tempts to bury silver and other 
valuable belongings — even pianos — 
in the ground 

On the North Side the swift- 
moving fire ripped at the wooden 
houses with the force of a hurricane. 
Families huddled on the lake shore 
surrounded by islands of personal 
property — silver, boxes of valuable 
papers, chairs, even disjointed bed- 
steads Mattresses and carpets con- 
tinually caught fire from falling 
sparks, and there was a constant 
procession to the lake for buckets 
of water to extinguish them. As the 
heat became more intense, horses 



' THE READER^S ^DIGEST 


and wagons were drnen as far out 
into the water as possible, and many 
persons waited out the fire in these 
high-wheeled \ehiclcs Others spent 
hours sitting on the backs of chairs, 
their feet on the seats in the water 

Meanwhile, at the exclusive Chi- 
cago Club, some of the memhcis 
had begun toasting their defiance 
of the destriKtion of their businesses 
with a champagne breakfast Before 
thev could finish, the fire i oared 
into the club HastiK tilling their 
pockets with cigars and bottles, 
they picked up the red satin sofas 
from the lobbv and took them to 
the lake shore — where thev sat 
down and finished then repast 

Bv carlv Mondav morning the 
original West Side fire had stopped 
at the burned out area of Saturdav 
night’s fire But the fire on the 
North Side was still sweeping to- 
wards Lake Michigan, and the 
flames in the business district both 
advanced and backtracked Manv 
buildings that had been saved dur- 
ing the night were now dcstroved, 
among them the famous Palmci 
House, McVicker's Theatre and the 
new “fireproof” Ttihune building. 

It was nightfall on Monday be- 
fore all the big fires slowlv began to 
die. Shortlv before midnight a light 
ram started to fall, and bv 4 a m on 
Tuesday the fire was over, though 
burning coal piles in the city’s cel- 
lars cast a weird red footlight on the 
panorama of ruin. 

In the burned-out 2,124-acrc area 
only two houses had been saved — 


the mansion of Mahlon Ogden and 
the modest home of policeman 
Richard Bellinger Ogden was 
awav, but friends kept the roof of 
his house covered with wet blankets 
and carpets, a measure that failed 
in hundreds of other cases Bellinger 
was probablv the only man to fight 
the fire directly and win During 
the night he raked up his leaves and 
burned his wooden fences. He kept 
his roof wet, first using watei fiom 
his cistern, then carrving buckets 
from a ditch two blocks away, 
finallv pouring his entire siippK of 
cider over the roof and walls 

Despite loss and t'-ageclv, Chicago 
turned matter-of-hutlv to the prob- 
lem of lecovcrv I'emporarv citv 
offices were set up and a relief pro 
gramme was soon under wav The 
mavor issued proclamations forbid- 
ding the sale of w^hiskv and fixing 
the price of bread The armv pro- 
vided tents as temporarv housing 
Special trains with food and cloth- 
ing came from New York 

Individual Chicagoans wxre quick 
to rise above the catastrophe One 
who wasted no time was ical estate 
agent W. D Kerfoot While the 
ruins of his office were still too hot 
to handle, Kerfoot erected a wooden 
shack and put up a sign • 

“\LL GO\F EXCEPT WIFE, DREN 
& F\ERGY.’’ 

Most Chicagoans agreed that 
Kerfoot had all that was needed to 
rebuild his fortunes, and the city 
Itself seemed to emulate his spint 
and rise reborn from the ashc^s. 



“My strength lies in the love of my people" 


The Queen of Greece 

Condensed jrom Time 


D id )ou ever 
stop to 
think,” Queen 
Frederika of 
Greece once asked 
Sir Winston 
Churchill, “that if 
your Queen Vic- 
toria had died be- 
fore she reached 
the throne my 
father would now 
be King of Eng- 
land!^” 

Because Victoria 
did survive, the Duke ot Cum- 
beiland, Victoria’s uncle and Fred- 
erika’s great-great-grandfather, had 
to be satisfied with the Kingdom of 
Hano\er. Years later a Hanoverian 
prince married the daughter of 
Kaiser Wilhelm II. Their third 
child, Princess of Hanover, Great 
Britain and Ireland, Duchess of 
Brunswick and Luneburg, and 
present Queen of Greece, was born 
on April i8, 1917. 

When Queen Frederika and her 
handsome husband, King Paul, were 


planning a trip to 
the United States 
recently, the pert, 
petite Queen gavc^ 
her dressmaker 
only one admoni- 
tion* “I have a 
tiny waist,” she 
said, “and I want 
to show It ” 
Frederika’s trim 
figure and impu- 
dent face are top- 
ped by an unruly 
mop of chestnut 
curls. She was once described (to 
her face) by a U S Congressman in 
his cups as “the cutest little Queenie 
I ever saw.” 

Fredcrika’s easy informality has 
proved a major asset to Greece’s rul- 
ing house, whose ro)al motto is; 
“M\ strength lies in the love of my 
people ” But Greece’s Queen is no 
royal flibbertigibbet Born to the 
purple as well as being married to 
It, she takes what she calls “this 
King business” very seriously, and 
exploits every ounce of her charm 




THE REAVER^S DIGEST Eebruary 


and wit to strengthen its power. 
‘ Princess Fredenka was brought 
up — mostly in Austria — in the 
stern, proud tradition of Germany's 
Juniper nobilitv It was unthinkable, 
she told schoolmates later, that she 
would ever be permitted to marry 
beneath her own exalted station 

A bright, alert, gay and aflec- 
tionatc tombov, she was educated 
at home by her strict mother and an 
English governess until she was 17 
Then she was sent off to school, first 
in England, then in Florenee The 
Italian finishing school was a demo- 
cratic institution where the girls 
made their own beds and called 
each other b\ their first names 
Fredenka loved it Generallv hat- 
less and never too neat (‘‘I don’t 
believe Frcderika’s seams were ever 
straight,” said one teacher), her 
schoolmates called the German 
Princess “Freddy” and even “Fried 

Egg ” 

That year Fredenka paid fre- 
quent visits to her two “aunts” 
(actually second cousins) at the Villa 
Sparta, just a short walk trom the 
school The reason the presence at 
the villa of the aunts’ \ounger 
brother, handsome, strapping (six- 
foot three-inch) Crown Prince Paul 
of Greece. 

Fredenka and Paul first met 
when she was only ten. To this day 
she boasts that she fell in love with 
him at first sight The romance had 
the full approval of all the royal 
^;£amtlies concerned, and in 1938, 
years after Fredenka left 


school, she and Prince Paul were 
married by the Archbishop of 
Athens. Some 60 representatives of 
Europe’s rc-ival houses stood by to 
see the Crown Prince carry his bnde 
off to his brother’s palace in a 
golden coach 

Ever since 1863 the Greek people 
have been voting iheir patient kings 
on and off their throne with unpre- 
dictable frequency Paul’s brother, 
George II, was enthroned three 
times and dethroned twice Their 
father. King Constantine, was twice 
called to the throne and twice 
thrown off it 

As heir presumptive to this ro\al 
general-post, Prince Paul showed an 
understandable lack of interest in 
his kingship The easv-going Crown 
Prince spent much of his time awa\ 
from Cireece, drifting from the 
home of one roval relative to that of 
another But bv the time he mar- 
ried hVederika, at the age of 36 (she 
was 20), he was readv to settle 
down. 

Fredenka herself was instantly 
at home in her new surroundings 
“I was bc;rn a barbarian,” she said, 
to the infinite delight of the Greeks, 
“and I came to Greece to get civil- 
ized.” The heady atmosphere of a 
nation where politics is a national 
sport suited her perfectly 

She lost no time estalalishing a 
dynasty. Her first child, Sophie, was 
born ten months after the mar- 
riage, and her second, who is the 
present Crown Prince Constantine, 
19 months later. 



^954 

In October 1940, Benito Musso- 
lini launched his attack on Greece. 
Eagerly seizing her first opportunity 
for service, Crown Princess Fred- 
erika plunged into the task of 
mobilizing Greece’s women in a 
drive to provide clothing for the pit- 
ifully under-equipped Greek Army. 
The armv stopped the Duce’s Fas- 
cists cold, Frederika\ clothing drive 
was a huge success, and both won 
new respect in the eves of the Greek 
people Then, early in the next year, 
Hide: sent the Wehymacht into 
Greece The royal family was forced 
to flee, first to Crete (where bombs 
rained about Fredenka’s curly 
head), then to Egvpt and finally to 
South Africa, where Frederika’s 
third child, Irene, was born 

In 1946, once again by popular 
vote, George II was called back to 
the throne of a Greece ravaged by 
war and torn with internal strife 
Half a year later he died, leaving 
his bleeding country and its battered 
crown to Paul and Fredenka 
Greece was all but bankrupt and 
much of It reduced to rubble 
Aided and supplied from outside, 
Greek Communists were fighting — 
and winning — a bloody guerrilla 
war against their fellow country- 
men. The future of Greece’s throne 
offered at best a long-shot gamble, 
but with the fervour and thorough- 
ness of a born politico Fredenka set 
to work canvassing her constituents 
and winning them over to her side. 

* During the first years of Paul’s 
reign, scarcely a square mile in all 


the 51,000 that formed Greece was 
left untrodden by the King and^ 
Queen. They rode in jeeps, crossed 
mountains on muleback, slept on 
dirt floors and ate with the peasants. 
No fighting front was too hot to 
keep them away 

At a reconstruction project, the 
husky King delighted local workers 
by seizing a shovel and making the 
dirt fly with the best of them. In a 
hospital, Fredenka held the hand of 
a dejected soldier whose head was 
so swathed in bandages that only 
his eyes peeped through, and lis- 
tened quietly to his fears about being 
scarred and ugly “\'ou could never 
be ugly,” she answered with a ra- 
diant smile, “not with such beauti- 
ful eyes.” 

Fredenka organized and person- 
ally supervised every detail of the 
Queen’s Fund, a vast charity whose 
original object was to find food and 
shelter for the thousands of home- 
less children wandering lost in 
her land Her impassioned pleas 
for her pet causes seldom fell on 
deaf ears. 

As Queen of Greece, Frcderika 
dabbled firmlv and frequently in 
the political pond, and until recently 
never hesitated to express her opin- 
ion on any and all subjects to what- 
ever newsman might drop in. “Of 
course, we are national symbols/*^ 
she once told a reporter, “but that 
doesn’t mean we must be figure- 
heads. What an awful bore that 
would be.” Such freewheehng mon- 
archy for a while made her a news-^ 


THE QUEEN OF GREECE 



- THE READER'S DIGEST 


man’s dream come true, but it led 
inevitably to clash with those 
more responsible than herself for 
S^cece’s welfare. 

195 1 > after watching many cor- 
^ption-ridden governments come 
ijtad go in SIX vears with no dis- 
;«fnible benefit to their country, the 
.'-Greeks turned once again to Field 
» 'Marshal Alexander Papagos, who 
Jiad twice led the Greek Armv to 
"'victory — against the Fascists and 
against the Communists In the elec- 
Stion of that year Papagos’ newly 
.K^ganized Greek Rail) captured the 
,;|iiggest number of seats in parlia- 
ment. Frederika opposed Papagos, 
'the man who thus stood as her onl\ 
rival for the love of her people 
The following \ear, ^\hen Papagos 
ifan again, he won b\ a large major- 
ity. Today, the feud between the 
^Marshal and the Queen, which 
never got far be\ond the cafes in 
Athens in anv case, seems to have 
been tacitly forgotten bv everyone 
concerned. 

Under the upright old Marshal 
l#nd his brilliant economic planner, 
Spyros Markezmis, Greek rc- 
Wvery has proceeded apace The 
^650 ,c»oo,ooo in military and econ- 
omic aid (about j[g 6 for every man, 
‘Woman and child in Greece) which 
Ifhe United States poured into the 
^pDuntry has played a major part in 
(idhe nation’s miraculous return to 
l^lth. 

So have Markezmis’ domestic 
ipoUcies, which rode roughshod over 


ancient privilege and fired thou- 
sands of civil servants, cut govern- 
ment spending to the bone and set 
into motion the first tax reform for 
decades. 

Todav the Greek Army (160, ooc 
men), one of the best in NATO, is 
well fed, well equipped and well 
clothed — in woollens from Greece’s 
own mills Unemployment is down 
from 150,000 to 50,000 Last autumn 
Greek farmers reaped one of the 
finest crops in their long history. 
Last year, for the first time since 
the war, the government reported 
a budget surplus 

The ro\al couple’s '‘ng 

charm and de\ oted example are jCil] 
a major factor in the relative con- 
tentment of Greece today Democ- 
racy-loving Greeks, who have nc 
use for pomp and arrogance, like 
to run across their friendly, smil- 
ing Queen democratically browsing 
through Athens shops in search of 
a good buy. They pride themselves 
on the sensible way she brings up 
her children, on the royal couple’s 
life at the palace, where Frederika 
often darts into the kitchen to cook 
dinner, or the summer villa where 
Paul potters in the garden and 
Frederika goes about in shorts 

Greeks like the fact that thcii 
Queen can win friends and influ- 
ence people in the name of Greece, 
Frederika and Paul have given the 
Greek throne a new stability match- 
ed only by the economic stability 
Papagos has given their country. 




By Howard Whitman 

M ost oh us want to be helpful makes \oiir friend feel free to ex- 
when grief strikes a friend, press grief and recover from it The 
but we often don’t know how We “don't take it so hard” approach 
may end up doing nothing because deprives him of the natural emotion 
we don’t know the right— and help- of grid, stops up the safety valve 
ful— things to say and do Because Ciod has given him 
that was my own experience re- 2 Don t try to divert them Many 
cently I lesolved to gather pointers [)cople making condolence calls pur- 
which might jc useful to others as posclv veer awav from the subject, 
well as to myself Thev make small talk about foot- 

The clergy deal with such situa- ball, fishing, the weather — any- 
tions every day I went to scores of thing but the reason for their visit 
them, of all faiths There is no use in trying to 

Here are some specific sugges- camouflage death The task of the 
tions they made mourner, difficult as it is, is to face 

I. Don’t tfy to them up'' the fact of death, and go on from 

It only makes your friend feel worse there It would be far better to sit 
when you say, “Come now, buck silcntlv and sav nothing than to 
up. Don’t take it so hard.” make obvious attempts to distract. 

A man who has lost his wife must The son owing friend sees through 
take it ^ hard (ifi he loved her), the eftort to divert him When the 
“Bucking him up” sounds as though v isitor leaves, reality hits him all the 
you are minimizing his loss. But the harder 

honest attitude, “Yes, it’s awful, 3 Don’t be afraid to tal^ about 
and, believe me, I know it is,” the perwn who ha^ passed away. 

Condensed from The ChrtsUsm Advocate 35 



3 ^ 

Well-intentioned friends often shy 
away from mentioning the de- 
ceased. The implication is that the 
whole thing is too terrible to men- 
tion. 

The helpful thing is to talk about 
the person as you knew him in the 
fullness of his life, to re-create a liv- 
ing picture to replace the picture of 
death. 

A friend of mine once called on a 
woman who had lost her brother 
“I didn’t know your brother very 
well,” he said “Tell me about him ” 
The woman started talking and they 
discussed her brother for an hour 
Afterwards she said, “I tccl relieved 
now for the first time since he died ” 

4 . Don't be afraid of causing 
tears When a good friend of mine 
lost a child I said something which 
made his eyes fill with tears “I put 
my foot in it,” I said, in relating the 
incident to a clerg\man “No, >ou 
didn’t,” he replied “You helped 
your friend to express grief in a 
normal, health) way That is far 
better than to stifle grief when 
friends arc present, onl> to have it 
descend more crushing!) when one 
is all alone ” 

Fear of causing tears, probably 
more than anything else, makes 
people stiff and ineffective Visiting 
a friend who has lost his wife, thev 
may be about to mention a drive in 
the countrv when they remember 
the man’s wife used to love driving 
in the c .untr\. They daren’t speak 
of peonies because they were her 
favourite flower So they freeze up. 


February 

They arc really depriving their 
friend of probably the greatest help 
they could give him. That is, to 
help him experience grief in a nor- 
mal way and get over it. Medical 
and psychological studies back up 
one clergyman’s contention that ex- 
pressing grief is good and repress- 
ing It is bad “If a comment of yours 
bring tears,” he concludes, “re- 
member — they are healthy tears.” 

5. Let them talk^ Sorrowing peo- 
ple need to talk Friends worry abo.ut 
their ability to say the right things 
They ought to be worrying about 
their ability to Imen 

If the warmth of your presence 
can get your friend to start talking, 
keep quiet and listen — even though 
he repeats the same things a dozen 
times He is not telling you news 
but expressing feelings that need 
repetition Here’s a measuring stick 
for the success of your visit If your 
friend has said a hundred words to 
your one, you’ve helped a lot 

6 Rea^bure — don’t aigue. Every- 
body who loses a loved one has 
guilt feelings — thev may not be 
justified but they’re natural. A nus- 
band feels hr should have been more 
considerate of his wife; a parent 
feels he should have spent more 
time with his child, a wife feels she 
should have made fewer demands 
on her husband. The yearling, “If 
only I had not done this, or done 
that — if I only had a chance to do 
It now,” is a hallmark of grieving. 

These feelings must work their 
way out You can give reassurance* 


THE READER^S DIGEST 



HOW TO HELP SOMEONE IN SORROW 


37 


^954 

Your friend must slowly come to 
the realization that he or she was, m 
all probability, a pretty good hus- 
band, wife or parent 
y. Communicate — don't isolate. 
Too often a person who has lost a 
loved one is overwhelmed with 
visitors for a week or so; then the 
house is empty Even good friends 
sometimes stay away, belies ing that 
people in sorrow “like to be alone ” 
It is in that after-period, when all 
the letters of sympathv have been 
read and acknowledged and people 
have swung back into daily routine, 
that- friends are needed most 
Keep in touch Sec your friend 
more often than \ou did before He 
has suffered a deep loss Your job is 
to show him, by implication, how 
much he still has left 

8 Perform .ome concrete act I 
learned of a sorrowing husband who 
lost all interest in food until a friend 
brought over his favourite dish and 
simply left it there at suppertimc 
That’^s a wonderful wav to help, bv 
a concrete deed which in itself may 
be small vet carries the immense im- 
plication that you care. 

We should make it our business, 
^when a friend is m sorrow, to do at 
least one practical, tangible act of 
kindness. 

9 Swing into action Action is 
the symbol of going on living 

By swinging into action with your 
•friend, whether at hisjiobby or his 
work, you help build a bridge to the 
future. Perhaps it means painting 
a shed with him, or hoeing the gar- 


Remind them that they will meet 
their loved ones again, and must 
had their lives so that the dead will 
not be disappointid in them 

'this advice to the bereaved of any 
age comes from Dr Maude Roydon, 

C H , for many years famous as 
preacher at the City Temple, and af- 
terw'ards at The CJuildhouse, Ecclcs- 
ton Square, London Still a frequent 
broadcaster, she says 

‘However young you were when 
you lost those loved ones, however 
old you may be when you rejoin 
them, lite will not be too long for the 
most desolate of you to strive so that, 
when you meet those you love, they 
will not be disapfiointed in you ” 

den Or spending an afternoon with 
a woman friend mending the chil- 
dren’s clothes, or browsing through 
antique shops 

Sorrowing people tend to drop 
out of things Thcv’re a little like 
the rider who has been thrown from 
a horse If thev are to ride again, 
better gel them back on the horse 
quicklv 

10 Get them out of themselves. 
Once voLi have vour friend doing 
things for himself, his grief is nearly 
cured Once you have him doing 
things for others, it is cured 

Grief runs a natural course. It 
will pass But if there is only a 
vacuum behind it, self-pity will rush 
in to fill It To help )our friend 
along the normal course of recovery, 
guide him to a new interest. 

If you and I, when sorrow strikes 
friends, follow even a few of these 
pointers, we will be helpful. 



And Now Ifs Frozeji Bread 


By Paul W Kearney 


O NE Mcin a few years ago 
Dean Arnold, a successful 
baker in Port Chester, 
New York, was reading Discovery, 
by Rear-Admiral Richard Byrd 
Admiral Byrd, after a successful 
expedition to Antarctica, had sud- 
denly been forced bv weather con- 
ditions to strike tamp and return 
home. Four years later he went back 
to the same base, chopped through 
thick ice covering the hut and found 
e\crything just as he had left it — 
including, among other foodstuffs, 
a loaf of bread, now solidly frozen, 
Byrd decided to experiment He 
thawed the four-year-old frozen 
bread and found it surprisingly 
good. 

When Dean Arnold read about 
this, nearly 20 years later, he was in 
the midst of experiments with 
frozen bread Byrd’s experience en- 
couraged him to speed up his re- 
search. Last winter he began pro- 
duction of quick-frozen rolls, cakes 
and pies, as well as bread Today 
1,000 American groceries are selling 
Arnold’s quick-frozen bakery prod- 
ucts, and shipments are going to 
customers m Europe, Britain and 
parts of Latin America. 


When baked products are quick- 
frozen shortly after they come out 
of the oven, their fresh flavour is 
locked in and retained But the 
freezing process means more than 
just fresh-tasting bread It means a 
great sa\ing of vital materials by 
eliminating the loss of bread which 
goes stale before it is sold 
Not long ago Dean Arnold called 
on Admiral Byrd to thank him for 
sparking the new senturc The two 
men took a liking to each other at 
once and today Admiral Byrd is a 
vice-president of Arnold’s com- 
pany, and is in charge of its Frozen 
Products Division 
Admiral Byrd has already shipped 
10,000 loaves of frozen bread to 
Western Germany for relief of refu- 
gees from beyond the Iron Curtain. 
Export shipments to U S service- 
men in London, Naples and the 
Panama Canal Zone have dev eloped. 

Both Arnold and Byrd have 
agreed to turn over to anyone in 
the baking industry the technical 
knowledge they have acquired 
about quick-freezing. Anything 
which benefits the industry as a 
whole they feel will prove helpful 
to themselves and to the public. 




Condensed from Natton*s Business 






I WAS in Java, writing a book) when 
I decided to make the sacred pil- 
grimage to the most secret and for- 
bidden of all cities — Mecca, Mo- 
hammed’s birthplace in Arabia. 

Several non-Moslem adventurers 
have succeeded in smuggling them- 
selves into the city, which, in a d 
630, the Prophet Mohammed sealed 
for ever from the outer world Many 
of them, however, turned back be- 
fore they set foot on sacred soil, 
stunned by the heat Others went 
on, deeper and deeper into the 
mysteries of the pilgrimage, until 
' they committed some error in ritual 
Their pilgrim disguise penetrated, 
they were torn to pieces by fanatics 
or perished under the sword of the 
executioner. Few have returned. 

^ A face as light as mine would 
certainly be challenged. My hair is 
fair,^my complexion conspicuously 


A dangerous pilgrimage to Urange 
and secret Mecca 


of the North And 1 am an Ameri- 
can citizen — a Colorado cattle ranch 
was my birthplace. My ancestry, 
however, is Mohammedan (I am 
descended from the Northern Turks 
of Russia), and as a child I learned 
many a long Moslem prayer. To 
help me further, years of travel in 
the Middle East and the Orient had 
added several tongues to the Eng- 
lish and Turkish I grew up speak- 
ing at home Moreover, a Javanese 
friend, Amir Izzet, who had been 
to Mecca before, decided to accom- 
pany me. He would be an invalu- 
able companion 

In late August 1952, Amir Izzet 
and I boarded a plane at Djakarta, 
sat back in our seats and softly ut- 

39 


Condensed from The Saturday Evening Post 



40 

tcred, *‘In the name o£ God be the 
course and the mooring ” This is 
the first of the pilgrim's prayers, all 
of which I was memorizing. 

When we reached Dhahran in 
Saudi Arabia the temperature stood 
at 1 15 degrees Fourteen pilgrims 
had been killed by the heat the day 
before Here many pilgrims were 
changing to the garments ot the 
pilgrimage Gathering by water hy- 
drants outside the airport building, 
they performed the ceremonial ab- 
lutions and wrapped themselves in 
plain white robes— a sign that the 
wearer has eschewed, among other 
things, \iolencc, marital relations, 
use of perfume and the wearing of 
jewellery or personal adornment, 
until the iites which he ahead have 
been fulfilled 

When we flew on to Jidda, Mec- 
ca’s Red Sea port, the temperature 
had risen to 126 degrees Here were 
converging transport planes from 
Somaliland, Ethiopia, the Sudan, 
Egypt, Syria, Iracj, Indonesia— all 
bringing pilgrims * The airport was 
bedlam There was no system, no 
organization, no common tongue 
Egyptian women, given to shrill 
ululation when excited or bereaved, 
were rending the night with their 
piercing cries 

An Arab inspected my American 
passport He expected to find an- 
other oil technician — and discovered 

• Every Moslem, except those not physically 
or economi lly abk, must mike the pilgnmaj^e 
to Mecca once in his lifetime 7’hc climax of 
the pilgrimage comes on the ninth day of the 
12th and last month of the Mohammedan 
calendar — in August, 1953, for example 


February 

a pilgrimage visa. Quickly he sum- 
moned other officials. Interrogated 
in the midst of the uproar, I ex- 
plained my racial background. There 
was an ominous, empty pause I was 
ringed l)v dubious, unsmiling eyes 

Dr Fahmi Murat, the quarantine 
doctor, originally a Turko-Tatar, 
stepped up He spoke my Turkish 
dialect I was not an impostor. I 
was able to relax 

We found beds at the Hotel Al- 
Taysir, six pilgrims sharing our 
room — Mohammedan ncwsmefi 
from Cairo, Tunis and Teheran 
I 1 ic inhabitants ol Jidda and Mecca 
look upon the faithful as their CJod- 
givcn prev Al-Taysir, worse than 
any slum doss-house, charged us the 
equivalent of ^3 a night Paper 
money had no circulation here — ar- 
riving pilgrims had to buy gold and 
silver coins at a loss from Jidda’s 
money-changers 

At Jidda, 45 miles from Mecca, 
all pilgrims must surrender their 
passports for “way passes “ To at- 
tempt to slip past the inspection 
points on the Mecca road witl out 
such a document would be ‘urc 
death We heard that two unbe- 
lievers from Jerusalem had been 
discovered and stoned to death on 
the Mecca road “It happened too 
quickly,” an Arab admitted mattcr- 
of-factly “After they w*erc dead, 
their passes were found to be in 
order But they were fair-haired,* 
and they had cameras. If they died 
martyrs, Paradise is their abode. 
God be praised ! ” 


THE READER'S DIGEST 





I SAW THE FORBIDDEN CITY 

Sir Richard Burton, world-famous for his Eng- 
lish translation of The Arabian Nights, made the 
pilgrimage to Mecca in 1853 disguised and under 
the name of Al-Haj Abdulla We quote his own 
words on attending the final ceremony in the 
Harim 

“I stood wonderstruck by the scene before me 
The vast quadrangle was crowded with wor- 
shippers sitting in long rows and everywhere fac- 
ing the centre-block tower, the showy colours of 
their dressc*; were not to be surpassed by a garden 
of the most brilliant flowers, and such diversity of 
detail would probably not be sren massed together 
in any other building I have seen the religious 
ceremonies of many lands, but never — nowhere — 
aught so solemn, so impressive as this ” 


^954 

Three days passed 
while Amir Izzet and 
I nervously waited for 
my way pass. “The 
officials are overwork- 
ed/’ said the ancient 
agent who was pre- 
sumably helping us 
with our documents 
On the fourth morn- 
ing 1 put a hand into 
my pocket to scratch 
my thigh — heat rash 
•had caught up with 
me, too I saw the 
agent's small eves burn with cupid- 
it\ I brought out a gold sovereign, 
and within the hour I had mv pass 

We took the Mecca road at sun- 
down and still the heat was ter- 
rible Ecstatic pilgiims streamed 
inland into the furnace desolation 
b) car, lorrv and rickctv bus, bv 
camel and donkey, afoot There 
were families who had walked for 
two years across Africa — penniless 
blacks from Sierra Leone and the 
Ciold ("oast 'Ihree times along the 
thronged road we were halted at 
grimv guard posts and scrutinized 
b) irmed Arab police Then, sud- 
denl\, the gates of Mecca loomed 
out of the dustv night 

Headlight beams laced the stifling 
darkness and Arabs with water 
skins offered to quench thirst, for 
silver Heat lav upon us like a vast, 
panting beast But the night was 
filled with the sound of rapturous 
prajier. Pilgrims neither remem- 
bered nor cared that they had been 


victimized every step of the way. 
We crossed a pot-holed incline and 
descended towards the random yel- 
low lights of Mecca My scalp tight- 
ened We had reached the secret city. 

All pilgrims arriving in Mecca 
hasten to the Mosque of the Sanc- 
tuar\ There, m the great inner 
courtyard, waits the Kaaba, a blue- 
veiled stone building without win- 
dow's and with but one door — “the 
most ancient edifice on earth, the 
temple beside which Adam wor- 
shipped, heartsick, after his expul- 
sion from Paiadise " This is the 
most sacred spot in Islam Wher- 
ever Mohammedans kneel in wor- 
ship, thev face in the direction of 
Mecca and the Kaaba, from which 
it is believed that the pravers uttered 
in unison and converging from all 
corners of the world flow vertically 
upwards to the attention of God 

We found a place opposite the 
Kaaba’s door to recite preparatory 
prayer. Through a momentary break 



THE READER S DIGEST 


4 ^ 

in the human vortex I glimpsed the 
sacred black stone, a meteorite, en- 
shrined in a corner of the Kaaba 
— the stone said by hol\ tradition 
to have been brought down to Abra- 
ham and Ishmael bv the Angel Ga- 
briel during the rebuilding of the 
Kaaba folkiwing the Deluge 
The voice of the praying multi- 
tude made antiphonal thunder for 
the silent heat lightning that shook 
the darkness Many wept. 1 could 
see Berbers, RiHs and Tuaregs, Chi- 
nese and Kurds, Pakistanis and 
Sumatrans; blacks from Nairobi, 
Khartoum and Zanzibar, men, 
women and children whose faces 
bore tribal scars and tattoos 
Having completed oui pra)ers, 
before wc could sleep we had still to 
travel seven times the sacred course 
between the hills As Safa and A 1 
Marwah Here Hagar, Abraham’s 
maid, had run back and forth pur 
suing mirages, seeking water for 
herself and the infant Ishmael 
We struggled through the human 
undertow, attempting to run where 
Hagar had run At least 50,000 peo- 
ple moved relentlessly between the 
two hills, chanting the ritual 
prayers. A dying man completed 
the rite from a reeling wooden litter 
carried on the heads of bearers 
At ten the next morning, with the 
temperature at 116 degrees (160 pil- 
grims had perished in the preceding 
24 hours), we went to the covered 
Mas’a to survey the bazaar stalls. 
Here were tons of rosaries, the beads 
cut from amber and rare stones and 


Fetrua$y 

fragrant woods. Here were silks and 
musk, frankincense, attar, rosewater 
— and soft drinks. 

Some of the major rites of pil- 
grimage take place out in the desert, 
in the Valley of Arafat By late 
afternoon, lorries that had trans- 
ported tents and provisions to this 
area w^re bringing back — for burial 
— ^the corpses of those who, no 
longer able to afford transport, had 
started into the inferno afoot 
Ar sundown the secret citv shud- 
dered and through a vast arras of 
dust discharged almost every hu- 
man soul into the desert Amir 
Iz/et and I rode on top of a ram- 
shackle bus with 20 Javanese and 
two bound bullock calves destined 
for blood sacrifice 
An hour and a quarter from 
Mecca we entered the Valley of 
Arafat More than 80,000 tents were 
pitched on the rocky floor of the 
barren valley, surrounding a soh- 
tar\ mountain of naked rock which 
jutted from its centre 
“When Adam and Eve were ban- 
ished from Paradise they were sep 
arated Two hundred years they 
searched the earth for one another, 
never resting, until the very heavens 
were shaken by sight of this love. 
They were reunited here. Eve, on 
this mountain, beheld Adam from 
afar as he came to her.” * 

Above the roar of motors and the 
bleating of sheep doomed for sacri- 
fice came the surf-like sound of 
voices reading the hypr«otic 

repetition of praise unto Goa. 



/ SAW TMt: TOKlf/Wl/JBTV C/i T 


mi 

An hour after sunrise the ther- 
mometer stood at 127 degrees. An 
Egyptian staggered into our tent 
ropes and collapsed A Syrian died, 
blood gushing from his nostrils An 
Arab water earner unsteadily put 
down his yoke of paraffin tins — 
then followed them to the ground 

Still the worshippers came, for 
not to be in the valley when the 
sun passed its meridian was to miss 
the pilgrimage Today was the 
Day of Absolution, when God 
jevealed Himself to His servants 
and they felt His presence. 

At high noon all save the dead 
stood and faced the mountain It 
floated now in a lake of quicksilver 
— a mirage Prayers began, rising 
from the multitude like a vast 
music, chord on chord And they 
went on and on, hour after hour 

Pilgrims physically capable re- 
mained standing in their scalding 
tents until the sun passed below the 
molten horizon Then, suddenly, 
the great encampment fled from the 
sacn d valley. This, too, is part of 
the rite, its significance lost 

Clinging to the top of our wheez- 
ing bus, we swayed along towards 
the crumbling village of Mina, final 
scene of the pilgrimage, in a mur- 
derous torrent of traffic 

It was in Mina that Abraham pre- 
pared to •sacrifice his son (Genesis 
xxii), when by divine intercession a 
ram was sent to take the youth’s 
place. Here, at sweltering daybreak, 
the ljuman sea engulfed the street 
where stand three stone-and-mortar 


43 

monuments marking the sites where 
Satan appeared three times to Abra- 
ham’s son, tempting the boy to flee, 
and was thrice stoned During the 
march from Arafat all pilgrims had 
gathered pebbles with which for 
three dawnings they would cere- 
monially stone the pillars 

Mina IS also a place of bloc^d sacri- 
fice As more than 150,000 sheep 
were offered up, life spouting from 
their slashed throats, the heavy, 
sweet reek of blood poisoned the 
desert air 

Most of the second day we lay 
gasping in our camp We emerged 
in the evening to learn that 4.41 1 
pilgrims had perished since dawn 
At 1120 am the mercury had 
climbed to 142 degrees ^ 

That night I was shaken awake 
by Amir Izzet His heat rash was 
such torment that his breath came 
in in\oluntary sobs and groans — and 
now he was racked by nausea Two 
swollen corpses lay on a broken 
masonrv wall at our heads We had 
had enough 

Holding our robes to our nostrils, 
we stepped over the sleeping Java- 
nese pilgrims and hurried through 
the dark village, casting our remain- 
ing stones at the three pillars of 
Satan to fulfil the ritual. 

Beyond the summit of the valley 
we bought a ride and were in Mecca 
within the hour A week later I was 
in New York I had witnessed the 
most ancient religious ritual on earth 
— a ritual which antedates by mil- 
lenniums the faith that adopted it. 



My FIRST church was a small coun- 
try one Full of enthusiasm and eager 
to build up the congregation, I de- 
cided that m\ sermons would set a 
standard of excellence heretofore un- 
known in the community With 
high hopes I went to work 
As I ascended the pulpit on Sun- 
day, St Paul on Mars Hill seemed 
sorry by comparison The sermon 
was a masterpiece The comments 
of the congregation at the conclu- 
sion of the service merely reaffirmed 
what I already knew — I was terri- 
fic* The last parishioner to leave 
was a lady of great age 
“Did anyone ever tell you how 
wonderful )ou are^” she asked 
softly My answer of “no” lacked 
all vestige of conviction 
“Well, theii,” she said, “wher- 
ever did )ou get the idea 

— Nl\\lii Ljndner, Chaplain, USN 


My FRIEND Susan, who has three 
lively children, was playing “Cow- 
boys and Indians” with them one 
afternoon when I called in for a 
visit As the boy levelled his gun at 
his mother and yelled “Bang*” she 
slumped to the floor and lay col- 
lapsed in a heap When she didn’t 
get up I hurried to her to see if she 
was all right As I bent over 
anxiously, she opened one eve and 
sighed, “Sh-h-h I always do this 
It’s the only chance I get to lest*” 
MRb Jwits Thompson 

A BISHOP who Was attending the 
annual meeting of the Foreign Mis-‘ 
sions Society had presented his 
views, when the lady president took 
the floor. 

“My Lord Bishop,” she said, “I 
cannot agree with your contention, 
and I will not be bullied * ’ 


44 



L/FF5 UKE THAT 


45 


Bowing courteously to the lady, 
the Bishop retorted, “Madam, 
neither will I be cowed ” — i b Mc^ 

There was one friend at the party 
whom I scarcely lecognized, for she 
was wearing glasses. When I re- 
marked about It, she casually re- 
plied, “Oh, Tve needed them for a 
long time, but I've just reached the 
aj>e where my curiosity is greater 
than my yanitv “ Mrs cari asi arson 

Thf members of a nonconformist 
church in my lormer home town 
were evcccdinglv proud of their 
new minister and went all out to 
include him in cverv civic activity 
But the Rotary cMub had them 
stvmicd for a while In this organ- 
ization each type of business may 
have onlv one representative, and 
for years the churches’ member had 
been a fhshop 

I low'ever, the \oung minister soon 
turned u[) as a Rotarian m good 
standing He was classified as 
“Ri ligion, retail” and the Bishop 
as “Religion, wholesale ” 

Mrs C T C ok HUN 

In Till lift at the block of flats 
where I liye I saw a notice saving, 
“Lost — ^5 note in lift Finder 
please contact Miss Fuller, Flat 
689 ” • 


I was perturbed, because Miss 
Fuller is an old lady who has no 
relatives and augments her small 
pension by doing mending for some 
of the tenants in the building A 
couple of hours later I knocked at 
her door When she opened it, li 
knew from her look that her money 
had been returned 

“Yes,” she answered to my in- 
quiry, “it’s been found Mr Davis 
on the second Boor found it Also 
Mr Harvey and Mrs West Best 
of all, I found it myself in my coat 
pocket, before any of those wonder- 
ful people came to my door Please, 
my dear, on vour way back, take 
the notice down for me before some 
more wonderful people find it ” 

C I ARA HCOEL 

Oi Jvne, the faithful cook for 
many years at our home, catered to 
every taste of my father One morn- 
ing Mother noticed J,mc peeping 
through the door of his room 

“Jane, \ou know my husband 
wouldn't like vour looking into his 
room while he’s dressing,” remon- 
strated my mother “Whv do you 
do it*^” 

Jane turned reproachful brown 
eyes on Mother and m a patient 
tone said “How am I to know 
when to put my scones in the oven 
if I don’t know when he gets his 
trousci S on ” — e:i i/ahfih Woodard 


couraged. 


IS a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind If cn- 
it cuts a ehannel into which all other thoughts are drained. 

-A SR 



Anii-rica’? SliiiW”. AW'Icoiih: 


‘ 1 


Many travellers from abroad who have to pass through the United 
States ta}{e home sorry memories Often treated as suspects, held 
under armed guard, virtually incommunicado, they learn new 
facts about the ‘land of the f?ee'‘ 


By Lester Velie 


2|B^ico Mitrani, an Italian busi- 
ncssman, recently paused 
at La Guardia Airport, 
New \ ork, on a flight from Portu- 
gal to Mexico 

“Your transit visa, please, “ the 
immigration inspector demanded 

“The airline said I didn’t need 
any The stop here is only two hours, 
and I will not leave the airport,” 
said Mitrani 

“We’ll teach the airline to follow 
regulations,” said the inspector 
Every visitor entering — or even 
passing through — the United States 
must have a transit visa or an order 
waiving the visa but assigning him 
to “protective custody” until he 
leaves the country. 

Through a technical error Signor 
Mitrani had neither Although his 
plane v as already warming up, he 

4 ^ 


was hustled from the airport as 
though lie had committed a criminal 
act He was held overnight under 
guard, then shipped back to Portu- 
gal 

Two days later Mitrau^ was back 
at La Guardia He had crossed the 
ocean three times in four days and, 
exhausted, looked forward to sev- 
eral days’ rest in New York He had 
his transit visa this time, but now 
another piece of led tape tripped 
him up Could Mitrani put up a 
$500 bond to assure his departure ^ 
Mitrani, an importer with a sub- 
stantial deposit in Credit Suisse in 
New York, reached for his wallet. 
But once again the welcome mat 
was pulled from under him. 

“Sorry, no cash,” said the inspec- 
tor “We can only take a surety 
bond or U S Treasury bond. That’s 



the regulation ” It was Sunday 
afternoon, no such bond could be 
had , Mitrani was locked up at Ellis 
Island, the U S Immigration Ser- 
vice’s detention centre Released the 
next day, he was free to spend some 
time in New York. But he wanted 
no part of it. He took the first plane 
out 

This is no isolated instance At 
U S airports and steamship docks 
traditional American friendliness 
too often is supplanted by hostility 
and distrust Some of the fault lies 
m the complexities of U S immi- 
gration law, but much of the trouble 
stems from the unimaginative way 
the law IS administered Cautious 
officials apply the rule book with 
such narrow, bureaucratic conscien- 
tiousness that embittered visitors say 
they’re shutting the United States 
behind a “Legal Curtain ’ 

I’his hyper-concern about travel- 
lers passing through, en route to 
another destination, is a fetish which 
most countries find unnecessary 
Only i8 of the 135 countries through 
which traffic moves today require 
transit visas Outside the Iron Cur- 
tain an American can circle the 
planet, alighting in transit in 117 
countries without prior permission 

The visitor, whose country treats 
Americans so open-handedly, runs 
into a maze of restrictions as soon 
as he begins to plan to travel to or 
through their country He finds 
that America has a double gauntlet 
of screening officialdom. First, the 
U.S. consul abroad. 


47 

To get a transit visa, good for a 
few hours’ wait at the airport in 
the United States, the visitor must 
satisfy virtually the same financial, 
health and political purity require- 
ments that he would need to im- 
migrate He must apply in person, 
be fingerprinted, furnish three iden- 
tical photographs, fill out four non- 
immigrant visa applications and 
temporary permit entry forms He 
must provide medical and police 
certificates and satisfy the consul he 
is free of subversive sentiments 

(ictting a transit visa, even for 
an established local businessman, 
takes up to eight weeks in Amster- 
dam, SIX weeks to six months m 
Berlin, four weeks in Rome, two 
weeks in Oslo There are some ex- 
ceptions in London or Brussels, foi 
example, a businessman can get a 
transit visa in a few days But if the 
applicant is not a long-established 
resident, or if security questions arc 
raised, getting a transit visa may 
take months 

Once the visa has been granted, 
the traveller believes he is “in ” He 
has been found to be acceptable to 
Uncle Sam He is not disillusioned 
until he lands on American soil and 
bumps into the second platoon — the 
immigration inspectors Then dis- 
illusion can descend swiftly. The 
visitor learns that the U S. consul 
abroad, an arm of the State Depart- 
ment, only proposes It is the Im- 
migration and Naturalization Ser- 
vice inspector, an arm of the Justice 
Department, who disposes The in- 



"THE READER^S DIGEST 


quiry can start all over again, with 
new information demanded from 
the visitor — and with different and 
frequently more stringent restric- 
tions applied against him 

Suspicion of visitors takes tangible 
form as “protective custody” — 
round-the-clock confinement under 
guard — when travellers without a 
visa pass through the United States 
en route to other countries 

At Idlewild Airport, New York, 
a key gateway, there is a “hold 
room” for such travellers waiting 
for connecting planes Here, any 
day, you can find the rnerchcint or 
engineer or tourist from Mexico or 
Argentina or Brazil who is on his 
way to Canada, Europe or Africa 
Or European travellers waiting for 
connections to South America or 
the Far East 

No one can go out for food It is 
brought in No one can leave the 
room to greet an American friend 
or relative who has come to the air- 
port to help spend the waiting 
hours Except for an emergency call 
to his consul no one can use the 
telephone The traveller is virtually 
incommunicado A guard bars the 
door. 

Should his departure from New 
York be delayed overnight, the 
traveller “in custody” is taken 
under guard to a hotel He does not 
register like other guests but signs 
in with a guard on a floor set aside 
for passengers in transit He is con- 
fined to his room. His meals are 
brought to him. 


Consider the case of Mrs. Elsie 
Blame, wife of a New Zealand doc- 
tor, homeward bound from England 
with her 22-year-old son, a medical 
student Mrs Blame was tOo ill to 
visit the American consul in Lon- 
don for a transit visa, so she tried 
her luck with the non-visa pro- 
cedure When she arrived at San 
Francisco, she and her son were 
ordered to immigration detention 
quarters, there to await the depar- 
ture of their New Zealand plane — 
a week away 

Mrs Blame found herself, as she 
recalls, in a “stone floored room 
with barred windows and three un- 
made beds A matron brought linen 
and left ” Her son shared a similar 
room with another detainee 

Mrs Blame telephoned the British 
consul at San Francisco, who pleaded 
with local immigration officials 
Local Immigration called Wash- 
ington Nothing doing The consul 
called the British Embassy in Wash- 
ington The Embassy called the 
State Department State called the 
Department of Justice, which finally 
acted The Blames, released at ^ast, 
were taken under guard to a S<m 
Francisco hotel, kept under guard 
day and night, and then, still under 
guard, put aboard their plane for 
New Zealand 

Back home, Mis Blame told her 
story The New Zealand Govern- 
ment, outraged, protested officially. 

Businessmen, teachers, writers 
and scientists find America’s Legal 
Curtain is really a very thick wall. 




j 1928 a Cincinnati family named 
Talbert noticed some alarming 
peculiarities in the health and 
behaviour of their nine-and-a-half- 
ycar-old son, Bill Although he had 
a tremendous appetite he was rap- 
idly losing weight He drank quarts 
of water every day but was always 
thirsty He tired easily, and had to 
visit the bathroom many times, day 
and night 

The Talberts took Bill to their 
fannly doctor, and then to the Chil- 
dren’s Hospital A few days later 
they were told the bad news Bill 
had diabetes 

The doctor explained that every- 
one’s system needs a chemical called 
insulin to help burn up carbohy 
drates — sugar, that is — in the body 
Insulin ,is manufactured by the 
pancreas When, for reasons that 
are still undiscovered, the pancreas 
doesn’t make enough insulin to do 
the )ob, sugar builds up to abnormal 

Condensed 


levels in the blood and spills over 
into the uri ne Then the patient may 
grow weaker and weaker, and if he 
isn’t given proper treatment he may 
die “How do you cure diabetes?” 
the Talberts asked 
“Nobody has found a cure,” the 
doctor said “Your child will always 
have It, I’m afraid ” 

“What do we do?” 

“Bill must go on a ven, strict diet, 
at least at first And he must take 
insulin, injected into an arm or a 
leg with a hypodermic needle ” 
“How often?” 

“Every day, for the rest of his 
life ” 

After receiving such news many 
parents regard their child as a 
chronic invalid and begin coddling 
and protecting him Others try to 
hide the fact that their child is a 
diabetic. It was a terrible blow to 
Bill’s mother and to the senior Tal- 
bert, whose main interest was sport 

from Life aQ 



kBADBm mmsr February 


who wanted his child to grow 
up to be a fine athlete. But they 
were sensible people and they went 
home determined to help Bill live a 
happy, normal life. 

Last September, at a ripe old 
athlete’s age of 35, Talbert competed 
for the lytn time in the U.S national 
tennis championships at Forest Hills, 
New York In the 21 years since he 
started to play tennis Talbert has 
won 26 U S titles, played in seven 
Davis Cup teams, and is ranked 
sixth among U S. amateurs. 

In 1948 he married Nancy Pike, 
daughter of a well-to-do merchant, 
and they are parents of two healthy 
little boys He has a good job, and 
has travelled over the globe By his 
own account, he has had fun and 
done all the things he has wanted to 
do. Yet he still has diabetes, and 
must take insulin every morning, as 
he has done every day since 1928 

There are millions of diabetics 
who, like Talbert, might not be alive 
had not insulin been discovered 32 
years ago. Because of insulin, and 
because of all else the doctors have 
learned about this mysterious ail 
ment, it no longer need be dreaded 
As one of the world’s most promin- 
ent diabetics, Bill Talbert has dis- 
proved the notion that sufferers 
from it cannot lead normal lives 

Talbert has never concealed his 
ailment. When sports writers dis- 
covered he wac a diabetic and 
wrote about it, he was neither em- 
barrassed nor annoyed. For several 
years he has been an active lay di- 


rector of an organization set up 
by physicians to promote the wel- 
fare of those who have the disease. 
His story has been an inspiration 
to other diabetics. 

Bill’s adjustment to the diabetic 
regime was far from easy From the 
day his illness was diagnosed, he 
had to eat on a rigid schedule and 
all his food had to be weighed. “I 
hated to go out at first,” he says, 
“because I had to carry those 
damned scales with me ” 

By the time he was 14 Bill’s 
strength and weight had been built 
up to about what they had been be- 
fore he got diabetes That summer 
— 19^2 — Bill’s father bought him a 
tennis racket and took him over to 
the public courts Bill proved to be 
fast on his feet, and he had timing, 
co-ordination and tenacity. He 
learned to conserve his energy to 
use short strokes and waste no 
motion 

That summer Bill went to the 
quarter finals, and at the end of his 
first season of play ranked tenth 
among boys in the whole of 
America He made his first trip to 
Forest Hills when he was 19, and 
by 1941 was placed tenth in the 
national ranking Bill was in 

Talbert finally managed to free 
himself of much that restricts the 
life of other diabetics He gave up 
the food-weighing scales by learning 
to estimate approximate weights 
and proportions so that he could 
maintain his diet in proper balance 
— so much carbohydrate, protdin 



\ t rt JF - * . 

rrm man wm mat mABETEs 


t954 

and fat in each meal. He learned 
what to do when his regular regime 
IS inadvertently upset by late din- 
ners or travelling — ^a sandwich and 
a glass of milk about 6 pm. (or 
something the equivalent in pro- 
tein), and biscuits and milk before 
going to bed. He never forgets to 
take with him a metal kit contain- 
ing insulin, a hypodermic syringe 
and needle, and alcohol to sterilize 
the needle 

Only twice has Talbert suffered 
the two terrible extremes every 
diabetic is subject to — diabetic coma 
and* insulin reaction (shock). Once 
in New Orleans he failed to take 
sufficient insulin regularly, went far 
off his diet and, after a few days of 
minor symptoms, started into coma 
He had terrible thirst, chills, fever 
and nightmares. Fortunately a 
friend who knew he was a diabetic 
dropped in, found him almost un- 
conscious and rushed him to a 
hospital 

Another time, while he was living 
at a hotel in New York, he went 
into shock, a condition that usually 
gives its own warning when the dia- 
betic sweats profusely, feels dizzy 
and cannot articulate clearly But 
Talbert was unable to spot the 
symptoms — he was already uncon- 
scious After a day’s work and some 
strenupus late-afternoon tennis, he 
had had a few drinks, eaten dinner 
and then gone on for a long even- 
ing’s entertainment When he got 
back to his hotel he forgot his milk- 
aAd-biscuit snack and went to sleep. 


5 ^ 

He was still asleep when the re- 
action set in. He came to, 40 hours 
later, in a hospital. 

Talbert has never suffered a sen 
ous reaction on the tennis court, 
although he has come close to it 
several times During a match 
against Pancho Gonzales, then 
American champion, Talbert began 
losing control, his shots went wildly 
out of court or into the net He was 
dog-tired Gardnar Mulloy (his 
doubles partner), who was watching 
the match, sensed what was happen- 
ing and brought him a glass of 
water strongly fortified with sugar, 
the antidote for shock Talbert 
gulped down the sweet mixture and 
went on to win the match 
Once, in Milwaukee, Talbert was 
arrested while taking his daily shot 
of insulin in a men’s room A police- 
man mistook him for a dope addict 
taking a jolt of heroin At the police- 
station he wasn’t released until he 
displayed his diabetic’s identifica- 
tion card and a magazine clipping 
which described his case and showed 
a picture of him 

Soon after sports writers gave Tal- 
bert's ailment publicity many people 
began writing to him Of all the 
letters he has received, the most 
satisfying to answer are those con- 
cerning youngsters who, hard hit 
by the news that they have diabetes, 
are eager for a boost in morale. A 
notable example is young Hamilton 
Richardson, who partnered Talbert 
last summer. He first met Richard- 
son about four years ago, some six 



THE READER^S DIGEST 


ip 

Wonths after the boy — then one of 
"Amcrira’s top junior players — was 
Stricken. Talbert felt a natural in- 
^^est because of the ailment they 
.ishared, and he encouraged Richard- 
ison to exploit his tennis skill Today 
a number of tennis experts share 
Talbert’s confidence that Richard- 
‘* 80 n will become a champion 

Last summer Talbert paid his 
yearly visit to a camp operated 
for diabetic children He had lunch 
with the 8o kids, aged 12 to 15 
They watched him play tennis with 
a sturdy young diabetic counsellor 


Then he answered questions 
“Where do you take your insulin, 
Bill?” He pulled up his tennis 
shorts and showed them the marks 
on his right leg “How do vou hold 
your tennis racket, Bill?” He 
showed them his favourite grips 
“Do you ever have athletics feet?” 
The answer was drowned in laugh- 
ter. They were a gay and happy lot 
On the way hick to town Bill 
Talbert said, “That's a good bunch 
of kids, and that’s the wav they 
ought to grow up — just the way 
other kids do ” 


Not by Bread Alone — 

.///an docs not live by bread alone, but by beauty and harmony, 
truth and goodness, work and recreation, affection and friendship, 
aspiration and worship 

Not by bread alone, but by the splendour of the firmament at 
night, the glory of the heavens at dawn, the blending of colours at 
sunset, the loveliness of magnolia trees, the magnificence of moun- 
tains 

Not by bread alone, but by the majesty of ocean breakers, the 
shimmer of moonlight on a calm lake, the flashing silver of a 
mountain torrent, the exquisite patterns of snow crystals, the 
creations of artists 

Not by bread alone, but by the sweet song of a mocking-bird, the 
rustic of the wind in the trees, the magic of a violin, the sublimity 
of a softly lighted cathedral 

Not by bread alone, but by the fragrance of roses, the scent of 
orange blossoms, the smell of new-mown hay, the clasp of a friend’s 
hand, the tenderness of a mother’s kiss 

Not by bread alone, but by the lyrics of poets, the wisdom of 
sages, the holiness of saints, the biographies of great souls 

Not by bread alone, but by comradeship and high adventure, 
seeking and finding, serving and sharing, loving and being loved 

Man docs not live by bread alone, but by being faithful in prayer, 
respo’-iding to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, finding and doing 
the loving will of God now and eternally —The University Presbyterian 





The freedom 
to Be 

Ones Best 


By Seymour St John 

Headmaster of a famous American 
ptihlu school 


T here is a basic freedom that wc 
in America are in danger of 
losing the freedom to be one's becty 
the chance for the development of 
each person to his highest power 
Tins freedom has started slipping 
away from us because of three great 
misunderstandings 
First, the misunderstanding of 
the meaning of democracy The 
principal of a secondary school is 
told that It is undemocratic to run 
a special programme of studies for 
outstanding boys and girls Again, 
when a good independent school in 
America recently closed, some 
thoughtful citizens urged that it be 
taken over by the public education 
authorities and used for boys and 
girls of high ability; that it have 
entrance requirements and give an 
advanced programme of studies to 
superior students who were, inter- 


ested and able to take it. The pro- 
posal was rejected because it was 
undemocratic* 

Courses are geared to the middle 
of the class The good student is un- 
challenged, bored The loafer re- 
ceives his passing grade And the 
lack of a standard which a boy or 
girl must meet passes for democracy. 

The second misunderstanding 
cimcerns what makes for happiness. 
The aims of present-day Western 
culture arc avowedly ease and ma- 
terial well-being shorter hours, a 
shorter week, more return for less 
accomplishment, more soft-soap ex- 
cuses and fewer honest, realistic de- 
mands In our schools this is re- 
flected by the vanishing hickory 
stick and the emerging psychiatrist. 
The hickory stick had its faults, and 
the psychiatrist has his strengths. 
But the trend is clear. Do wc really 
believe that our softening standards 
bring happiness Is it our sound 
and considered judgment that the 
tougher subjects should be thrown 
aside ^ 

The last misunderstanding is in 
the area of values Here are some of 
the most influential tenets of teacher 
education over the past 50 years: 
there is no eternal truth ; there is no 
absolute moral law, there is no God. 
Yet all of history has taught us that 
the denial of these ultimates, the 
placing of man or state at the core 
of the universe, results in a paralys- 
ing mass selfishness; and the first 
signs of It are already evident. 


Condensed from The Saturday Review 


53 



THE kEADEftS DlGESf 


\S4 

Arnold Toynbee has said that all 
^ progress, all development come 
-from challenge and a consequent 
response. So first we owe our chil- 
dren the most demanding, challeng- 
ing curriculum that is within their 
* capabilities Michelangelo did not 
learn to paint by spending his time 
doodling Mozart was not an ac- 
complished pianist at the age of 
eight as the result of spending his 
days in front of a telc\ision set 
Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, 
they responded to the challenge of 
their lives by a disciplined training 
and they gained a new freedom 

The second oppoitunity we can 
give our bovs and girls is the right 
to failure “Freedom is not only a 
, privilege, it is a test,” savs the phil- 
osopher Lecomte du Nouv What 
kind of test is it where no one can 
faiP The dav is past when any 
country can afford togne sccondar\ 
school diplomas to all who sit 
through font \ears of instruaion. 


regardless of whether any results can 
be discerned. We live in a narrowed 
world where we must be alert, 
awake to realism; and realism de- 
mands standards which must either 
be met or result in failure. These 
are hard words, but they are brut- 
ally true If we deprive our children 
of the right to fail we deprive 
them of knowledge of the world 
as It IS 

Finally, by exposing our children 
to the best values we have found, to 
the values that history has proved 
truest, perhaps we shall be able to 
produce, in the words of Dr 
C'harles Malik, Ambassador to 
UNO from the Lebanon, that 
“ringing message, full of content 
and truth, satisfying the mind, ap- 
[Kaling to the heart, firing the 
will, a message on which one can 
stake Ills whole life ” Thu is the 
message that could mean )oy and 
strcngtii and leadership — freedom 
as opposed to serfdom 


The { ittne of Ugliness 

7 ^/iien 'lou arc in London, go to that, most interesting museum, the 
National Portrait Gallery There you will find portraits of all the men 
who for the last 400 years have been important in every profession in 
England You will be struck by tfuir prevailing ugliness — great arch- 
bishops, distinguished scholars, statesmen and men of affairs 
Ugliness has positive moral values First, the man afflicted with it is 
thereby deprived of a too-easy success in love, this deprivation spurs him 
all the more cageily to conquer — he his only the brilliance of his accom- 
plishments by which to please 

Moreover, ugliness in a man, if it accompanies strength, usually preju- 
one in its favour His superiors seldom feel jealous towards an 
man, noi are they indifferent to him One remembers unusual 
^features rather than a handsome but commonplace head - Andrt Maarou 



The Most 

Unforgettable Character 
Tve Met 

By M.iv D.ivison Rhodes 

T hf first time I saw Eugene No one, I believe, could resist 
Manlove Rhodes he asked me this man once he had his heart 
to marry him set We were married within the 

From my home in western New week 
York I had written to him in New Eugene Manlove Rhodes is still 
Mexico to tell him how much I remembered as a writer His n 
liked a poem of his. We corre- books, his hundreds of short stories 
sponded for two years Then sud and his poems have been called “the | 
dcnly — with a frontiersman’s flair finest literature to come out of the 
for action — the author appeared on cattle country " Yet I know that 
my doorstep for the sole purpose of (iene did not think of himself prim- 
taking home a bride arily as a writer His pride was in 

He was slim, blond-haired, with his skill as a cowbov, whose horse- 
the straight back and slender hips manship was so cxtramdinary as to 
of the horseman His blond mous- make him a legend in his lifetime, 
tauie stood out luxuriantly on his As for writing, Gene had only to 

tanned face I looked closer And record life as he had lived it He 

gasped. could not have invented a life more 

One of his eyes was swollen half exciting than his own 
shut A gash creased his cheek One If I had known Ciene better 1 

ear was torn and battered “A would not have pressed him for de- 

slight altercation,” he said mildly, tails of that “altercation ” Part of 

in answer to my look of horror, his code was reticence about phy- 

Thcn iie handed me the gifts he steal prowess But — I was a woman 
had brought a beautiful volume and 1 persisted, 
of Kipling’s poems and a lady’s Like many range dwellers. Gene 
pearl-handled revolver. had land and animals — but no cash. 

55 , 




i^S READiR'S DIGEST / February 


To get to New York, he got a )ob 
on an eastbound cattle tram A 
brake man tried to bully him Fin- 
ally Gene waded into the brake man 
His first blow — intended for a 
knockout — landed on “a marble 
pillar of a man It took consider- 
able mixing before Gene flattened 
his opponent Later he learned that 
he had tangled with a crack middle- 
weight prize fighter 

Most of Gene’s exploits will go 
unrecorded I ferreted some of them 
out of other people Main were told 
to me as part of the Rhodes legend 
But the silent evidence was appal- 
ling His body was a mass of scars 
A maimed finger once aroused the 
curiosity of a small boy “What hap- 
pened^” the child asked hopefullv 
“An accident,” (jcne said The 
boy’s face fell with such disappoint- 
ment that Gene relented “You 
see,” he explained, “he was aiming 
for my heart ” 

Raw courage, to Gene, was sim- 
ply a necessary ingredient of daih 
lire. I soon discovered that being 
married to him was like trying to 
Snuggle up to a volcano Any form 
of injustice sent him into a rage 
that resulted in prompt, decisive 
action — with a pen, with words, 
most frequently with ready fists 
A friend of Gene’s tried to put my 
mind at ease “Don’t you worry, 
ma’am,” he said, “the boys are all 
a’seared of Gene. I guess maybe a 
dozen has tried to kill him, but it 
just can’t oe done.” 

One of these attempted murders 


was an oft-told local yarn. The sta- 
tion agent at Engle — Gene’s post 
oflice and nearest shipping point — 
attempted to wrest land from some 
homesteaders As was his custom, 
Gene leaped into the fight uninvited 
and secured the land for its rightful 
owners A short time later, when 
Cicnc was obliged to go into the 
station to ask about a cattle ship- 
ment, the agent started to revile 
him Cicne picked up a new'spaper 
from the counter and began reading 
It His indiflcrenLC provoked the 
agent to even greater abuse Still 
reading. Gene turned, sauntered 
out of the door and up the street 
The infuriated agent picked up his 
rifle and fired afier Gene, who con- 
tinued his leisurely pace The agent 
fired again, but (jenc strolled on 
until he reached a saloon and turned 
in “My God, CJene*” said a friend 
who had witnessed the scene “Why 
didn’t \ou dodge"” 

(jcnc grinned “If I’d dodged,” 
he said, “the damn fool might ha\e 
hit me'” 

Gene’s fearlessness Wets tempered 
by a prankish humour During my 
first few days in New Mexico, I 
was puzzled to observe that the 
women turned their heads and whis- 
pered when I walked by on Gene’s 
arm. Then I discovered the cau^e. 
Gene was when we married. 
Naturally the local ladies had won- 
dered about his romantic life His 
desire for privacy coupled with a 
touch of whimsy led him to tell one 
prying gossip that he had a wife and 



1954 7 ™ 


three children in El Paso To an- 
other he admitted that he kept a 
Mexican girl at his mountain ranch 
And to a third he confessed a vow 
of celibacy About mv arrival he had 
said absolutelv nothing 
Born in Nebraska, Gene was first 
introduced to this south-western 
countrv at the age of eight, when 
his father, Colonel Hinman Rhodes, 
became superintendent of the Mes- 
calero Apache Indian Reservation 
Colonel Rhodes was famous for his 
braverv, his practical jokes — and his 
improv idcnce However, the Colonel 
left his son one invaluable legacy It 
was the “courage to master fear “ 
During his first week :n New Mexico 
Territory, Ciene saved the life of an 
Indian child b\ stunning a charging 
bull with a well-aimed stone to its 
head for this fear the grateful 
Apaches christened him Ox-Killcr 
At armed with a soap-coupon 
saddle and a bravura beyond his 
\ears, he talked himself into a 
horse-minder’s job for the big Bar 
Cross (battle Com pan) Bar Ooss 
men were top hands and they didn’t 
care for their new colleague He 
h«id grit all right, and he “didn’t 
have enough sense to fear a bad 
man or a bad horse,” but thc\ didn’t 
like having “such a raggedy little 
cuss” riding for their outfit He 
didn’t have a jacket for the cold or 
a slicker for the rain, and he used 
his saddle blanket for a bed roll 
I’he men figured (Jene was too 
‘miscrlv to “get rigged out decent ” 
. Several months and countless 


Jibes later, the truth came out. Gene 
was sending his wages home to his 
mother, having told her he was get- 
ting Jio more per month than he 
actually was When the Bar Cross 
men found this out, they hustled to 
town to find Gene the best outfit 
their money would buy 

Bv the time he was i8 Cienc had 
served as a scout for the U S Army, 
guiding a division through the New 
Mexico mountains in pursuit of the 
wilv Indian chief, Geronimo He 
had also tried his hand at freighting 
and mining At the time of our mar- 
iiagc Cienc was running a ranch he 
had homesteaded in the rugged San 
Andres mountains, 40 miles west of 
Tularosa He raised horses and 
broke them for use as cow ponies. 
On the side he hud published num- 
erous poems and one short story. 
But to the countrv round he was a 
horseman, proud of his reputation 
which prompted the local accolade, 
“Ciene can nde anything that wears 
hair ” 

On a trip to Las Cruces, Gene' 
stopped at a friend’s ranch to bor- 
row a fresh horse His host pointed 
to a dun in the corral “Does he 
pitch (iene asked “Never has,*’ 
the man assured him Gene took his 
saddle down to the corral, threw it 
over the animal’s back and climbed 
aboard The minute his weight hit> 
the saddle hell broke loose The dun 
climbed for the moon, snorting his 
lage When Cicnc finally managed 
to get the horse quieted to a dead 
run around the corral, he yelled l 6 



rm ^AOEitS maest pebmary 


friend, “Thought you said he 
^dn’t pitch*” “Never has,” the 
^an yelled hack “Never been rid- 
before ” C^cnc headed the un 
•|>roken horse down the trail, and 
^'lodc him the remaining 40 miles to 
:’Las Cruces 

V Gene set out to dominate the 
wilderness round his ranch just as 
he would master a wild horse 
Working alone with pick and shovel 
and dynamite, he hacked a roadway 
out of the rock and sand to the 
nearest town Today the road from 
Engle across the San Andres to 
Ifularosa follows (ient’s markings 
The canyon and pass where he lived 
bear his name 

Before we were married, (jenc 
had borrowed $50 and headed for 
the University of the Pacific at San 
Jose, California There he camped 
in a deserted railway hut, lived on 
oatmeal — “the cheapest thing that 
gives you an illusion of being full ” 
He used up his $50 in one term, so 
he stayed through the summer and 
worked in a railway gang The 
money he earned saw him through 
a second term Then he headed 
home. 

One day that spring, in the little 
town of Hucrco, a dude, decked 
but in a derby, spats and high collar, 
walked timidly into the bar “Could 
any of you gentlemen loan me a 
.horse?” he asked. The cowboys, 
who loved no sport better than bait- 
^ing greenhorns, rounded up the 
)i^$tiest bronc in town and helped 
dude aboard. The raging horse 


plunged and reared, but amazingly 
the dude stuck on Suddenly he 
jerked off his derby, fanned it 
across the horse’s ears, raked his 



patent leather shoes along the am 
mal’s sides, and charged down the 
street with an ear-splitting whoop. 
“Who IS that?^” the cowboys asked 
one another The bartender took a 
second look Then he said, “That’s 
just Gene Rhodes, back from col- 
lege I” 

He lined his ranch shack with 
maps so that he could study geo- 
graphy while he ate his meals He 
read everything he could lay his 
eyes on, including the labels of 
tinned goods and bottles. “I enjoyed 
Worcester Sauce best,” he told me 
with a twinkle. “It has the most 
beautiful English.” 

Gene, reading on horseback, be- 
came a familiar sight. Each trip to 



59 


7954 MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER WE MET 


town meant a new book to read. 
Once, with two friends, he was rid- 
ing along a narrow mountain trail 
— as usual deep in a book His horse 
shied at a rock, slipped and plunged 
over the edge of the trail When the 
men looked down they saw the 
horse caught in a crevice Beneath 
the horse they made out a denim- 
clad leg, then a tanned face “Arc 
you hurt^" they shouted “Don’t 
think so,” Gene called up, “but I 
sure lost my place*” 

Actually Gene’s leg was badly 
crushed But it was one of Gene’s 
rules of conduct that any injury or 
illness of his own was to be treated 
lightly If I saw Gene being earned 
in, I was supposed to react calmly 
in a cheerful, competent manner — 
under threat of being shipped home 
if I failed * 

Gene’s innate sense of fair play 
was outraged at what one-visit 
authors were writing about his part 
of the country and its people The 
grotesque dialogue, the foolhardy 
horsemanship attributed to cow- 
boys, made him determined to set 
the record right. His first story, 
written in hot protest, went to the 
magazine, Out West, and came 
under the critical eye of the famous 
authority on western lore. Dr. 
Charles Lummis His excited re- 
action was, “There’s red blood in 
this.” Years latei, when we were 
visiting Dr. Lummis in Santa Fe, 
Gene was asked to sign the guest 
book. With an impish grin at the 
man who had given him his start. 


Gene wrote, “All I have and all 1 
am I owe” — pause — “my creditors.” 

In one of Gene’s stories a cow- 
hand just back from New York 
reports, “New York’s just like here 
— nine decent men for every skunk.” 
It was one of the “skunks” who 
changed Gene’s life I was in New 
York showing off our baby son to 
his grandparents Riding far out on 
the desert, Gene found a man suf- 
feiing from thirst and lack of food. 
True to the range code, Ciene gave 
him water, shot the first calf he saw 
to feed him, then carried him to the 
nearest town 

The calf Gene killed belonged to 
a powerful politician in Santa Fc, 
of whom (jcne had been outspok- 
enly critical The tramp reported 
the slaughter of the calf to its owner, 
in exchange for a reward offered 
for catching cattle thieves. A war- 
rant was issued for Gene’s arrest. 
Pat Garrett — a political enemy of 
Gene’s, but his fellow in courage 
and range tradition — rode 50 miles 
to warn him 

Gene held himself to be innocent. 
He refused to dignify the charge of 
cattle thievery by going to court. 
He siniply went into exile until the 
charge against him was time-ex- 
pired. During those homesick years 
— and what homesick ones they 
were for Gene* — we lived on the 
farm in New York state, where 1 
was born He wrote of nothing but 
New Mexico. “I couldn’t stand it 
back here,” he told me, “if it 
weren’t for my dreams. Each night, 



^tHE READER’S DIGEST 


^hcn my head touches the pillow, 
Tm back in the saddle again ’* 

Even after his stones had begun 
to sell regularh, Ciene never had 
any money He was the proverbial 
soft touch If he did not have the 
cash in hand to grant a requested 
loan, he would lx)rrow it When 
the till reached a dangerously low 
mark he would go into a frcn/\ of 
work to restore solvencv Lending 
monev, to him, was not a benevo- 
lent gesture but a down pav ment on 
his gratitude to (^od 

God, to (k'nc, was a personal 
friend. Gene spoke to Him and 
about Him with no embarrassment 
During those black days in the 
autumn of igio when our babv 
Barbara died, Cicnc turned to his 
Friend for solace 1 le wrote a letter 
to God, telling Him about llarbara, 
about her favourite games and that 
“she liked to help ” We buricel the 
letter with her 

Barbara’s death was the only blow 
ever to hold Cicnc in a prolonged 
state of despaii Ordinarily he had 
no use for unhappiness “It was one 
of our folkways,” he once said, “to 
take the go(jd with the bad ” 

In 1925 Gene wrote a botjk that 
has been called “the finest novel 
that has been written on any west- 
ern subject ” Paso por Aqtii (He 
Passed by Here) is the story of a 
bank robber who pauses in his des- 
perate flight to nurse a Mexican 
family stricken with diphtheria. Re- 
alizing that his efforts alone will 


not save them, the robber lights a 
signal fire to summon aid The 
sheriff, who brings a doctor, does 
not arrest the fugitive In 1947 Pai^o 
por Aqui was filmed under the 
title Font Faces West 

When at last we returned to New 
Mexico, it w'as too late Asthma had 
weakened Cicne, and he now had a 
bad heart as well “A trip wiW kill 
vou,” the doctor warned Ckne 
smiled and answered as an old 
pokcr-pIa\er, “I’ll see that— and 
raise ” 

Wc had onl) a few precious 
months in New Mexico The dust 
and the altitude were loo much, so 
we moved on to California Gene 
was in constant pain now, )et he 
continued writing And heanswered 
the mounds of fan letters that 
poured in every day 

Two days before his death ht 
wTotc to an old friend “Si<tv-fi\e 
todav and not a lick of sense yet^” 
When he died on June 27, ici^4, ^ 
thought of (jcne’s words “I don’t 
want a funeral Just take me back 
up there into the San Andres — 40 
miles from nowhere ” His cowboy 
friends dug a grave out of the white 
gypsum The yuccas glowed like 
stately wax candles round him. 
And a huge boulder from his horse 
corial bore the inscription “Eugene 
Manlovc Rhodes, paso pot aqui ” 

Yes, he passed by Except for my 
loneliness, I could not really be sad, 
for Gene had had a 65-year love 
affair with life 





% 


The Hospital That Breaks Rules 
and Cures Patients 




H\ Teigh Hloorn 


T hru oi ilu* slranocst and most 
jiromisiiig developments in the 
iKatment ol mental diseases 
aie taking pLiee in an iindistin 
guished lour-st(Jiv red-hiick build 
mg in lU^ston, Massachusetts 
(;llKiall\, It’s known as Boston 
Psvehopathie Hospital, a teaching 
unit of Harvard Medical School 
UnoiricialU, the less eoiiv'cntional 
Bostonians call it “Psvcho ” But all 
over the world ps)ehiatrists arc 
coming to know the hospital as 
d’le unusual place where (i) patients 
help geivcrn themselves, (2) patients 
help cure other patients, and (3) 
psvchiatrists, nurses and attendants 
veiluntanly subject themselves to a 
strange new drug that makes them 
fed like patients foi a day 
When Dr Solomon, the hospital’s 
medical director, reported that fully 
80 per cent of the discharged pa- 
tients were bacK in the community 
and adjusting satisfactorily, many 
psychiatiists were sceptical. Such a 

Condensed fiot 


cure rate is unu-»ualK high A medi- 
cal journal suggested that a tcul test 
would be to see how many patients 
were saiisfaetonlv adjusic'd five 
years after their discharge 

Dr Solomon and his staff took 
up the challenge In an investigation 
concluded late in 1953 ^^'^7 tf^^ced 
the histones of the first 100 patients 
dischaiged in ic^b and 1947 
Solomon admitted he had been 
wrong The new check revealed 
that not 80 per cent but H 6 per cent 
were satisfactorily adjusted after five 
years Yet all of the 100 had been 
adjudged by several psychiatrists at 
the time of their admission as 
serious menaces to society 
This was especially impressive, 
since the majority of the 1,200 pa- 
tients Boston Psychopathic gets in 
an average year have schizophrenia, 
the most serious of all mental dis- 
eases and the hardest to cure. More 
than half the million men and 
women who will be in mental hos- 

Today's Health 6l 


4a THE READERS DIGEST February 


5 ntals in 1954 will be schizophrenic, 
ust giving them the minimum of 
care and supervision —which is all 
many of them get — will cost $400,- 
000,000 a year 

In their tight little dream world 
the schizophrenics hear things^ 
They laugh and giggle inanely 
They curl up messily in bed or on 
floors, vegetaiing Thcv’rc invari- 
ably suspicious of anyone trying to 
help them 

Like many a modern mental hos- 
Mtal, Boston Psycopathic uses insu- 
in and electncal shock therapies to 
jrcak the bonds of the schizophren- 
ic’s private shell But much more 
is needed to make the disturbed 
patient a social creature again One 
of the most helpful of these tech- 
niques IS “Patient Government “ 
Boston Psychopathic dc\ eloped 
Patient Government, or PG, as a 
result of a survey among convales- 
cent women patients to find out 
what they liked or disliked about 
the hospital One complaint was 
that some patients were not observ- 
ing the afternoon rest period Dr 
Robert Hyde, assistant superintend- 
ent, boldly suggested that the pa- 
tients themselves try to enforce the 
rest period. Gradually a formal or- 
ganization emerged In 1948 four 
officers were elected among the 
patients, and the group began to 
meet once a week to hear grievances. 

A year later Patien*^ Government 
Was broadened to include seriously 
disturbed patients. When this hap- 
pened a few attendants threatened 


to resign. “I’m not gonna have these 
nuts tell me how to do my job,” one 
said Dr. Solomon had his qualms, 
too And they weren’t groundless. 
Some patients were a problem at 
the weekly meetings 

Yet before long the members of 
the staff who sometimes attended 
in silence noted strange things hap- 
pening At one meeting an ob- 
streperous patient who constantly 
insisted that he was cleverer than 
everybody present was finally put in 
his place A usualK timid woman 
patient walked over to him, pointed 
dramatically to the door and said 
“Get out* We’ve had enough 
of your exhibitionism.” Everybody 
clapped and the noisy patient was 
quiet after that The next day he 
apologized 

Patients now use the PG meet- 
ings to plan dances, outings, musi- 
cal parties and film shows PG is 
also charged with bringing out a 
weekly mimeographed newspaper, 
Psycho News 

Weekly meetings are held in the 
auditorium The women wear neat 
cotton dresses and the men come in 
clean shirts and slacks There were 
about 60 present the night I at- 
tended Ward representatives were 
called on for their reports Ward 
5 wants Its refrigerator repaired 
Ward 5 reports that its washing ma 
chine still isn’t mended A debate 
arises : How can the patients make 
money to buy a new TV set ^ They 
quickly fall in with a patient’s sug- 
gestion . “Let’s make Christmas 



tiOSPITAL THAT BREAKS RULES AND CURES PATIENTS 


cards in occupational therapy and 
sell them to visitors." 

However, it’s the things Patient 
Government does to help the hos- 
pital that reallv prove its worth 
When Boston Psvchopathic began 
getting visits from interested groups 
during Mental Hygiene Week, it 
lacked sufFicicnt employees to guide 
visitors through the place P(J sug 
gested that convalescent patients 
be used They knew the hospital as 
well as anyone and patients wouldn’t 
feel like animals in the /oo if a 
fellow inmate were taking visitors 
through The proposal was adopted- 

From the oflkers and ward repre- 
sentatives of Patient (Jovernment I 
found out how patients even help 
cure other patients Roger, who had 
been a biilliant science student, had 
)ust come from an insulin-shock 
period He was sipping orange juice 
and his hands were still shaking. 
“When they let me out of seclusion 
I tried to kill myself three times in 
one day Nothing happened because 
an attendant and a PG officer were 
keeping an eye on me 

“All I remember — 1 was pretty 
ill then — IS that I kept saying ‘Pm 
just garbage I belong in the in- 
cinerator ’ That was the day I tried 
to put my head in the kitchen oven 
But they finally got me to sign a 
non-aggression pact and a peace 
treaty I was to stay at peace with 
myself and if for some reason I was 
going to break the pact I had to 
give them 24 hours’ notice. 

“Sounds crazy,” he smiled wanly, 


“but It worked Well, yesterday I 
made up for it a little. They put me 
in charge of next week’s variety 
show and there’s a new patient who 
used to be a night-club singer But 
she hasn’t sung for over a year and 
I had to build up her confidence. 
She promised she'd try and I think 
she will ” “ 

Herb, the P(j piesidcnt, told me 
how he had spent 20 of his 23 years 
in state institutions “I've been m 
institutions,” he said, “where no 
fuss was made when an attendant 
killed a patient with a blow. In 
some places we used to call the at- 
tendants ‘paid patients Many of 
them were a whole lot sicker than 
we were Then 1 got a real break 
and was sent here Pretty soon some 
people in the ward asked me to 
be their Patient Cjovernment repre- 
sentative 

“I started taking an interest m 
other patients The more time I 
spent on my PG work the better I 
felt But when they elected me 
president I was scared. In all my 
life no one had ever given me any 
responsibilities Well, I guess it 
worked out but no one was more 
surprised than 1 was ” 

Because of their responsibilities 
PG’s elected officers seem to get 
well faster than ordinary convales- 
cent patients — so much so that PG 
holds elections every month be- 
cause Its officers are constantly being 
released. 

Until very recently doctors knew 
little of what a schizophrenic ac- 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


tually felt and thought and suf- 
fered Then, in 1949, news came 
that a Swiss chemist had discovered 
strange chemical named lysergic 
acid diethylamide — LSD for short 
When taken by normal people in 
tiny doses it would bring on, tem- 
porarily, the moods and symptoms 
of a schizophrenic Dr Hyde ob- 
tained some of the drug and decided 
to use himself as a guinea pig 
He took a dose early one morning 
in his office Within 30 minutes he 
found It hard to talk or co-ordinate 
his hands wl.-en trying to draw a 
diagram Followed by two doctors 
and a psychologist he visited one of 
the wards where he suddenly lost 
his identity as Dr Hyde, psy- 
chiatrist He felt ltl{e a patient 
“Only schizophrenics had a nor- 
mal human look to me, all the 
others — doctors, nurses, attendants 
— looked flat as pancakes, like 
painted cardboard display pieces It 
was terrible ” Late that afternoon 
the drug’s effects began to wear off 
and Dr Hyde was himself the fol- 
lowing morning 

Forty others volunteered, and 
from them Dr Hyde and his col- 
leagues have learned much that was 
never known about schizophrenics 
They now know, for instance, that 
schizophrenics can’t answer the 
question “Tell us what's bothering 
you.” There )ust aren’t words to 
describe the schizophrenic’s state of 
unreasoning fear and incredible sus- 
jbcion of everyone Nearly all the 
^SD volunteers reported that when 


they were asked questions which 
they didn’t want to answer, the 
questioner would almost instantly 
appear to them as a hideous- looking 
gargoyle Or he would suddenly be 
transported 30 feet away People 
who they felt were friendly and 
helpful would grow enormously in 
stature, but those who annoyed 
them would often lie converted into 
midgets 

Like schizophrenics, most volun- 
teers had a complete lack of sex feel- 
ings and practically no interest in 
food There was, for most of them, 
a shameful feeling that they were 
so unusuall) slopp\ and messv that 
they wanted to hide 

Did the dramatic experiments 
ha\e any practical value" Listen to 
Dr Hyde 

“We have learned many new 
things that will help us and other 
hospitals handle schizophrenics 
The attendant or nurse who has had 
a day of the incredibly lonely, pri- 
vate hell of LSD now knows that 
when a patient pleads, ‘Please stay 
with me for a while,’ it means he 
really needs the comfort of someone 
near him ” 

The LSD experiments at Boston 
Psychopathic have created a stir 
among U S research workers. Ob- 
viously, if a tin\ trace of a drug can 
bring on a schizophrenic ^tate in 
normal people there’s a good chance 
that some similar chemical brings 
on the real schizophrenic state Just 
what It is or how it gets built up in 
the body nobody knows — yet 




European Teen-Agers 
Take a Look at America 


By Quentin Reynolds 


T\\l)l \l^ 1 >F Mars\c is 
1 cl serious - c\ccl \y - year - old 
i\ French hoy who ar rived a year 
ago to live with an American family 
and to finish his secondary school 
education at the Thatcher School in 
Ojai, California 

“I had a lot of [irejudices about 
the C lilted States,” he says ‘‘In 
Pans wc sometimes unconsciously 
uccept Communist propaganda For 
instance, when I came here I was 
positive that all Negroes were vir- 
tually slaves and that all workers 
were treated badly, paid poorly and 
considered social outcasts 

‘So what happened^ The Santa 
Barbara High School elected Glenn 
Young, a Negro boy, student presi- 
dent I became friendly with him 
and told him I’d like to meet some 
working people ‘Come home and 

QiiNiiN IflhYNoiDs, vrteran foreign cor- 
respondent, has written more than a dozen 
outstanding books, including /, Wtlltc Sutton 
and The Amazing Mr Doolittle (condensed 
in The Reader’s Digest, June, 1953) 


The reactions of 2^^ youngsters i 
pom other lands to a year of life i 
in the United States \ 


meet my father,’ Cdenn said I met 
his father and his friends, white 
and Negro They worked in factor- 
ies and were liked and respected by 
their neighbours Nearly all owned 
cars and television sets 

Xavier de Marsac is one of 234 
secondary school students from 14 
countries brought to the United 
States last year by the American 
Field Service The boys and girls 
spend a year living in U S homes, 
attending U S secondary schools, 
and then they go on a 24-day bus 
trip 

There is nothing new about an 
exchange-student plan, but most 
such schemes involve university 
students who live in dormitories or 
clubs The exchange university stu- 
dent often finds himself living with 
his own countrymen, with little 
chance of becoming part of the 

65 



66 THE READER'S DIGEST t<»ruary 


American community. In contrast, 
these secondary school youngsters 
become part of the families in 
which they are placed; they look 
upon their hosts as foster parents, 
often developing warm affection 
for them And they learn about the 
U.S brand of democracy from life 
as It IS lived in average American 
homes and schools Some spend 
their year in small villages, others 
in large cities. All see the bad as 
well as the good in American life 
“What impresses me,” said Jac- 

3 UCS Aufaure of Fiance, “is the fact 
lat nobody tries to hide American 
imperfections Instead, people arc 
constantly forming groups to try to 
remedy the defects ” 

Susanne Niedcrmayer, a lively 
i6-year-old Viennese youngster with 
laughing eyes and a peaches-and- 
cream complexion, spent her year 
with the Shelton family in Knox- 
ville, Tennessee She acquired a 
deep love for her hosts, whom she 
refers to as “Dad and Mother.” She 
IS a little bit angry with her teachers 
in Vienna 

“Oh, we studied about democ- 
racy,” Susie says, “but we were al- 
ways reminded that it had been 
tried and hadn’t worked in Austria 
Our teachers were still thinking in 
terms of the strength of the Nazis 
who took over our country and of 
the power of the Communists who 
divided it. They just don’t know 
how strong democracy can be. It 
isn’t just a political theory; it’s a 
way oi life that we experienced in 


school and at home in Knoxville. 
People get funny ideas about Amer- 
ica in Austria ” 

Chiefly responsible for this ex- 
periment in practical democracy is 
Stephen Galatti, who as a young 
Harvard graduate went to France 
to drive an ambulance in World 
War I A group of American citi- 
zens hvir>j in France had organized 
the American Field Service before 
their country entered the war. Many 
of them were well off, they bought 
ambulances and medical equip- 
ment, and served under French 
Army leadership The organizatron 
was never allowed to die and dur- 
ing World War II Galatti, by now 
a succe^^sful broker, became its 
director general, supervising the 
activities of 2 000 volunteer am- 
bulance drivers 

The exchange programme got its 
start in 1947 when Galatti invited 
50 European youngsters to study in 
the United States He had found 
private schools that would accept 
them tuition-frec, and families who 
would take them in. The cost per 
visitor averaged $650 (>^230). Ga- 
latti asked for contributions from 
the men who had driven ambul- 
ances His enthusiasm fired them 
to the extent of $10,000 Later Ga- 
latii canvassed friends and found 
them financially responsive. 

When the bus carrying those first 
50 students stopped at Elkhart, 
Indiana, the youngsters made quite 
an impression. A dance was given 
at the secondary school. Soon after- 



1954 ’ StTKOFBM Tem^ACBRS TAKE A LOOK AT AMERKA 67 
wards the Elkhart students wrote to youngsters is subjected to any intel- 


Galatti asking if the school couldn’t 
adopt a foreign boy or girl. They 
raised $650 from ^o-cent student 
donations 

Today secondary schools in wSy- 
racuse, Pittsburgh and othei cities 
have paid the expenses of visiting 
students Parent-Teacher Associa- 
tions adopted them So ha^ e Rotary 
and other businessmen’s clubs Last 
year 80 per cent of the 234 students 
attended public secondary schools, 
.where they were given a closer ap- 
proximation of average teen-age life 
and education than that afforded 
by private schools 

The students are all hand-picked 
by the Ministry of Education in 
each country They must be 16 to 
18, they must have a working 
knowledge of English and they 
must be of good character A year 
ago 900 French youngsters com- 
peted for the 15 scholarships avail- 
able to France They were given a 
written examination and then an 
oral test, both supervised by the 
French Ministry of Education 

Three years ago the U S State 
Department, impressed by the re- 
sults of the experiment, offered to 
defray a major part of the expense 
necessary to transport and maintain 
German and Austrian students. 

Last year nearly 100 of the 234 
foreign students were from Ger- 
many and Austria Many of the 
German youngsters were the sons 
and daughters of refugees from 
East Germany None of these 


lectual regimentation, nor docs the 
Stare Department exercise even the 
slightest supervision over their 
activities 

Late in July the boys and girls 
who had finished the school year 
went to Garden City, New York, 
for a four-day series of forums pre- 
paratory to sailing for home All 
spoke excellent English, many with 
a tinge of sectional accent or collo- 
quialisms They were completely 
frank and intelligently articulate in 
discussing differences they’d found 
in the political, social, educational 
and family lives of the Old World 
and the New 

Hildegard Zanssen is a vivacious, 
golden-haired German youngster 
who spent her year in Santa Paula, 
California 

“Fve learned that you have re- 
sponsibilities under a democratic 
system,” Hildie said earnestly “In 
Germany we arc interested mostly 
in our families, not so much in 
our communities People here are 
always raising funds for orphan 
asylums or something to help the 
community That’s what I call being 
religious They’re always trying to 
help somebody else ” 

Tall, serious Peter Curtius of Krc- 
feld, Germany, nodded agreement. 
“Hildie IS right I went to school 
in New Jersey, and the students 
sponsored all kinds of drives for 
charitable causes One thing I 
noticed about the school was the 
way we became friends with our 



THE READER^S DIGEST Eetr^ 


teachers. In Germany you’d never 
really have the nerve to confide in 
and ask advice of a teacher.” 

Lovely, dark-eyed Joy Voivoda 
comes from Athens. The name Joy 
fits her, for she is a happy girl who 
enjoyed her year at the Master’s 
School in Dobhs Ferry, New York 

*‘It was quite different from 
school life in Athens,” Joy says “At 
our age at home we are never al- 
lowed to go to dances or to movies 
unless our parents go with us. And 
at the Master’s School many of the 
girls were looking forward to work- 
ing when they graduated. In 
Athens, giils can’t get jobs unless 
they are highly trained technicians. 
I’m going to get a job when I get a 
little older I want to work for the 
United Nations ” 

On the long three-week bus trip 
which caps their year the youngsters 
formed strong friendships. One of 
the most popular boys was lanky 
Eystcin Silseth of Oslo, who was 
nicknamed “Ace ” Ace spent his 
year in the home of a well-to-do in- 
dustrialist of Wilmington, Dela- 
ware. 

“At home rich men’s children 
have an easy time,” he said “It 
wasn’t like that here. My foster 
brothers and I worked in the gar- 
den. If we didn’t work — no spend- 
ing money. The oldest son went to 
college but he worked every sum- 
mer. And we all went about with 
the sons of workers, and nobody 
cared that we came from a home 
'that was pretty well off.” 


These youngsters occasionally 
found flaws in American points of 
view Many decried what they con- 
sidered an exaggerated fear of Com- 
munism 

“I can’t see that Communism is 
aThreat here,” said Eva Weidler of 
Vienna, “but the way some people 
carry on you’d think the whole 
Governir^nt was filled with Com- 
munist agents ’ Marta Vereide of 
Norway agreed “You Americans 
don't have to be scared of Com- 
munism It has nothing to offer the 
American working man ” 

The students thought that famdy 
ties were much closer in Europe 
than in America “Many mothers 
are out all the time playing bridge 
or doing club work,” Fran^oise 
Fages of France says “Fathers are 
busy working Children in the teen- 
age group don’t get much dis- 
cipline, many run wild. In France 
social life revolves round the family 
We are very close and do things 
together Here every member of a 
family seems to have a different 
circle of friends.” 

The visitors were unanimous in 
praising the U S political system, 
but most had doubts as to the atti- 
tude of the public towards office 
seekers “In my country,” Bill 
McKinley of New Zealand said, 
“men make great sacrifices to run 
for public office, and they are re- 
spected for this sign of devotion to 
their civic duties. Here people often 
take a dim view of politicians — even 
honest, sincere ones.” 



David Cruise left Harrow ia 1951 ac die^agc 
17, and spent a year at Princeton before going to 
Oxford He says; 

^'Before 1 went to America m September i95i> 
a master at my public school warned me against 
the fatal step ! was taking. Although he had 
never been nearer to the States than the local 
cinema, he informed me quite categorically that I 
was going to a modern Babylon, where religion, 
morals and art counted for nothmg, and money 
was the sole criterion. This view, which is pretty 
widely held, is partly due to the continumg ignor* 
ance here of the American way of doing things 
I very rarely found this way degenerating into 
sheer materialism, but discovered, on the contrary, 
that the kindness of Americans, their hospitality, 
and, above all, their interest in England and 
Europe, were virtually inexhaustible " 


Many of the youngsters had 
strong reservations about the 
academic level of U S secondary 
schools Paolo Bertelh of Bologha 
summed up their views “Children 
go to high school here to have 
fun,” he said. “They think that 
sports and outside activities are 
more important than studying In 
Europe we go to school to study, 
we work hard and, if there is any 
time left over, then we play games 
or join clubs.” 

David Jenkins of Middlesex 
agreed that secondary school aca- 
demic standards were deplorably 
low. When he had finished his third 
year at Harrow he had a good 


69 

knowledge of Latin 
and Greek and spoke 
French 

“7'here is this, 
though,” Jenkins said 
emphatically “Here 
every boy and girl can 
go to college. Few of 
the boys 1 was brought 
up with went to the 
university. Working 
your wav through a 
university is virtually 
unknown in Europe.” 

The students were 
almost unanimous in 
their praise of co-edu- 
cation, something quite rare in their 
own countries 

These are thoughtful, question- 
ing youngsters They are intelligent 
enough to see American faults, they 
aic conscious of the arrogance 
Americans occasionally display to- 
wards the rest of the world and they 
smile when Americans boast of 
their material riches But they see 
through the imperfections to the 
hard core of America the warmth, 
the generosity, the ability to sub- 
merge political and sectional differ- 
ences in time of crises and, above 
all, the strength and practicability 
of the democratic ideal. This is 
what they take home with them 


^/4ien King James II called St, Paul’s Cathedral “amusing, awful, 
and artifical,” Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, was pleased. In those 
days, amusing meant amazing, awful meant awc-inspiring, and artifical 
meant artistic. 




^"'nis TRut j>TC)RY, which I am tell- 

I mg with a few necessary dis 
guises, starts some years ago in a 
small hill town in southern Italy 

One of the ga)est of the young- 
sters of the town was Lucia Gazzoni 
— a dark-haircd, dark-eyed beauty 
of great charm and liveliness Lucia 
amused herself by tantalizing the 
young men who trailed hopelully at 
her heels For a few days she would 
choose one as her escort and then 
blithely discard him But though she 

Born jn Australia, Miss Wyiii was 
brought up in England, whcic she began her 
varied and highly successful literary career 
at the age of 20 Since then her short itorus, 
novels and articles have appeared regularly 
in leading British and American magazines 
In addition, she has written some 20 books, 
including Ihe young tn Heart, BlacJ^ liar- 
vest and Keeper oj the Flame (all published 
bv Cassell’s, London), and a number of film 
scripts 


created despair she never aroused 
resentment, and none of her suitors 
ceased to adore her 

When .idulation was for some 
reason withheld fiom hei*, she was 
herself tantalized So it was inevi- 
table that she would make a dead 
set at Cjiuscppe Silva, who seemed 
immune to her charms, and attempt 
to add him to her list of con- 
quests 

In appearance Giuseppe wasn’t 
romantic — he was rather short and 
heavy-shouldered, and only his 
bright, kindly eyes saved his swarthy 
face from being extremely plain 
But he was the town’s most eligible 
young man, for he was the only 
tailor in that region and was rela- 
tively well-to-do A clevgr dress de- 
signer, he could do anything with a 
pair of scissors, a needle and a piece 
of material. The town boasted that* 


70 



7 ^ 


you could go as far as Naples and 
do no better. 

On the first warm days of spring 
the annual Fair came to set up its 
booths in the town square. The day 
before it opened, Lucia went to 
Giuseppe’s little shop, ostensibly to 
buy thread, but after making the 
purchase she lingered with an air of 
demure diffidence 

“Why do you stay in this little 
place, signore?” she asked “Every- 
one says that you are so clever. You 
Lould go to Naples and make a lot 
of money . ” 

“The money I have, signonna, is 
enough.” 

“You have no ambition,” she said 
scornfully 

“It IS foolish to be ambitious for 
things one does not really want — or 
for things one cannot have ” 

“What do you want?” 

He went on stitching silently 
Suddenly she asked gaily, “Would 
you like to take me to the Fair?” 

Any other man would have 
jumped at the offer, but he took his 
time “I should be very pleased, 
signonna,” he replied, and with that 
cool acceptance she had to be con- 
tent 

At least Giuseppe had one ad- 
vantage over all her other courtiers 
he had money and he spent it freely. 
Lucia dragged him unresisting into 
the entertainment booths, where he 
bought her sweet cakes and cheap 
^ trinkets to her whim’s content. But 
perhaps because he believed he was 
too old for such things he let her 


ride on the roundabout alone, and 
waited for her patiently on the 
fringe of the crowd. 

So Lucia met Roberto Bellini. 
He rode the wooden horse next to 
hers and laughed at her pretended 
terror, steadying her with a strong 
hand She knew him by reputation. 
He had relatives in the town, whom 
he had come to visit at Fairtime. 
Roberto, a steady, successful young 
fellow, was a wine salesman for 
Italian and French vintners, and 
had travelled throughout Europe. 

Did It seem to her restless heart 
that Roberto was a way of escape 
from her drab, confining world ? At 
any rate she was delighted when 
he called at her home the next day. 
Lucia and her parents understood 
why he had come — a young man 
did not make a formal call like that 
without a serious purpose. 

Within a few weeks Roberto was 
back with a proposal of marriage. 
He was going to America as the rep- 
resentative of several winegrowers, 
and wanted to take Lucia with him. 

There was no doubt of the an- 
swer Lucia’s parents might be 
heavy hearted at her going so far 
from them, but America was El 
Dorado to them and they were glad 
for her good fortune 

News of the betrothal spread 
quickly When Giuseppe heard it 
he called on Lucia’s parents and 
asked them to permit him to make 
Lucia’s wedding dress. He added 
hastily, for fear that they might 
misunderstand, that it would be his 





vHE mbom message 


wedding gift. They were thankful 
to accept, for they were poor and 
the dress would have been an ex- 
pensive and burdensome item. 

So almost every day Lucia, care- 
fully chaperoned, went to Giuseppe’s 
little shop He knelt at her feet and 
fitted and snipped and pinned the 
lovely silk, which was so rich and 
heavy that everyone knew Giuseppe 
must have made a special journey 
to Naples to find it When the dress 
was finished she smiled happily at 
herself in the mirror She hadn’t 
known she could be so beautiful 
The sun shone at her wedding 
That night her parents kept open 
house and there was dancing in the 
square. But Giuseppe’s house was 
closed and he had vanished Rumour 
had It that he had been called awav 
to visit a sick relative Lucia, in her 
happy excitement, had no time to 
think of him The next day she and 
her husband left for America 
At first, marriage was as wonder- 
ful as her dreams of it Roberto, who 
was ten years older than she, proved 
a good husband as well as a good 
businessman They had a pleasant 
little house in a New York suburb, 
and m time they were blessed with 
two little girls as pretty and bright 
eyed as their mother 
For a few years Lucia wrote home 
regularly, but then less and less 
often A war intervened The little 
Italian town gradually faded into 
the mists of her girlhood’s memories. 
She thought of (jiuseppe just once 
—when she laid the wedding dress 


away finally It was already old- 
fashioned, but the material was still 
lovely and some dav, perhaps, she 
would fiitd a use for it. 

Then slowly, ominously, the tide 
of then fortunes began to turn 
Business was bad, Roberto, good 
salesman though he was, found him- 
self with little but an expense ac- 
count to olTcr his employers After 
a brief illness he lost his agency. He 
found anc‘ther job, but he had lost 
confidence, and illness returned — 
this time in disabling form Little 
by little their savings were eaten up 
One tragic dav, suddenly, he died 

Lucia had no one to turn to ex- 
cept friends who had troubles of 
their own Her parents were dead 
Her daughters, aged ten and seven, 
were far too young to support them- 
selves 

Heartsick and frightened, she 
sold their home, took rooms in a 
cheaper locality and earned a pre- 
carious living by teaching Italian in 
a New York school and giving Eng- 
lish lessons to new arrivals from her 
native country Sometimes she 
would he awake at night and wDn- 
der what would become of them all 
if she were taken ill 

There were also minor problems 
Little Lucy, the younger girl, stood 
on the threshold of her First Com- 
munion, the first important event 
in her life. “What shall I wear, 
Mother?’’ she would ask Lucia 
knew what was at the back of the 
child’s anxious questioning would 
she have to be ashamed, as she 




/ / o / / 

, I'.'l / ' 

\ ' 'I C t. t ■ 

c • \ 1 • " ' I IJ 



fhr Hot-Weather fitness- 
to cool you down- 
to buck you up! 

When hot weather wearies you, 
revive yourself with a glass of 
sparkling, pleasant-tastmg An- 
drews It*s so coohng, so refresh- 
ing, the ideal thirst-quencher for 
people of all ages 
Andrews does more than freshen 
you up — It cleanses the system and 
gently regulates its workmg Keep 
a tin handy m hot weather, to 
cool you down, to buck you up, 
to put the sparkle back into life 


n 






was so often, of her shabby clothes? 

Then Lucia remembered her 
wedding dress. 

There it was — as rich, as lovely 
as ever. It was amazing to think 
that she had owned something so 
beautiful and had almost forgotten 
it. She began at once to rip it apart 
and cut it down to Lucy’s measure- 
ments. Undoing the deep hem she 
found, to her astonishment, a neatly 
folded paper On it, in faded but 
strong writing, was a message that 
had been waiting for her nearly 15 
years “I shall always love you ” 

Lucia sat for a long time, remem- 
bering. She saw the dark, square- 
shouldered man, really, for the first 
time She thought of the unspoken 
devotion which she had never 
known that Giuseppe had cherished 
for her Overcome, she cried her 
heart out with loneliness and gnef 

That night she wrote a letter It 
was addressed to a man who might 
now be dead, and who in any case 
must surely have long since forgot- 
ten her But she had a deeply felt 
urge to tell him that she had found 
his message and that she wanted to 
thank him at long last for a devo- 
tion she had done so little to de- 
serve. Beyond telling him that her 


husband was dead she made no 
reference to the misfortune that had 
overtaken her. 

Weeks passed, and there was no 
answer She did not expect one. 
Little Lucy wore the beautiful dress 
at her First Communion and was 
the proudest, happiest girl of all her 
class. Watching her go up the 
church aisle to the altar, Lucia 
thanked Giuseppe for a goodness 
that, like the vines on their native 
hillside, still bore fruit. 

One day soon afterwards, she 
came home to find a man waiting 
for her in the dim hallway of her 
apartment house At first she did 
not recognize him The heavy 
shoulders had grown heavier and a 
little stooped , the once thick black 
hair was grey Then she heard his 
voice “It IS still true, Lucia*” 

Though she had not written of 
her distress, because he loved her 
he had known of it in his heart 
Giuseppe had come, on the brave 
chance that she might need him 

This story has a fitting fairy-tale 
ending. Giuseppe had done well for 
himself and was able to establish a 
tailoring business in the new coun- 
try that had become hers, and to 
make a good home for all of them. 


THE following sentence to a friend and ask him to write it down. 
From 100, which is a perfect score for the test, subtract 10 fof each 
word wrongly spelt 

Outside a cemetery sat a harassed cobbler and an embarrassed oculist, 
picnicking on a desiccated apple, and gazing at the symmetry of a lady's 
ankle wuh unparalleled ecstasy 



The right to organize is no longer challenged, but the abuse 
of power by labour leaders is a menace to a nation’s welfare 


The Rights and Wroegs 

of Labour By Donald R Rtchbcrg 

Well-known American lawyer and 
labour-relations expert 


I N OUR human struggles to- 
wards a higher civilization 
we seem fated to do a lot of 
fighting against one another in the 
process of learning to work to- 
gether for our common gam La- 
bour battles have brought suffering 
and hardship to millions of people 
They have wasted untold wealth 
and energy that might have been 
better used to advance the general 
welfare 

I have fought with and against 
labour organizations, with and 
against employers, with and against 
the government But let me claim 
one consistency in this motley 
record I have consistently opposed 
tyranny and oppression, whether by 
employers, labour leaders or public 
officials 

In such fighting I have swung a 
zestful axe for nearly half a cen- 
tury. But recently I have come to 
fear that we in America have de- 
veloped such fearsome weapons in 
industrial warfare that we arc 


facing a choice between disarma- 
ment and suicide 
The long struggle to establish the 
right of the workers to organize, 
and to participate in the regulation 
of wages and working conditions 
through collective bargaining, has 
been won. But today many out- 
standing labour leaders are greedy 
for monopoly powers which should 
never be permitted to anyone, and 
greedy for conscriptive and disci- 
plinary powers which, if exercised 
by any government, would be de- 
nounced as political tyranny 
The present objective of the lab- 
our movement is to compel every 
worker to join a labour organiza- 
tion in, order to earn a living. Out- 
standing labour leaders flatly assert 
on platforms, m writings and in 
arguments in the courts that there 
should be “no competition between 
workers.” They argue that all 
workers should be organized in 
unions which should work in con- 
cert to establish an irresistible 

IS 


Condensed from The Freeman 



She was spoiUn^ her 

famii^s 4un 



A wife should be her 
husb^Kids co^pa^ioin ct\^d , 
her childre/is fneiod But Ifl+cly 
you hove beeti weither^ What's 
wrom^^ , Push pa '' 


I'm sorry mother^ 

I do try -to be fl qood 
ivifc flKid mother but| 
I jusf” haven't -Hne , 
e^oer^Jv jom 
in their fun 



Oh (Mother, we 
had a wonderful 
tfwie \Ne got on 
the giant wheel 

and ^ 

But wve ntissed you Pushpa 
Why do you always want 
to stay at home nowadoys ^ 
You used to like going out 
so much 



ShGb been 
complaining af 
tiredness ! think 
you had bette 
take her 
^ , Doctor 






Why the doctor 

recommends Horticks 

The chief source of your 
health and energy is the 
nourishment contained in 
your food But if the food 
you cat fails to provide 
ihe balanced nourishment 
necessary for sound health and energy, 
\ou become tired and listless, lack 
cneigy to enjoy life In such cases I 
iccommend Horlicks That is because 
Horlicks has all the body-building nou*.^ 
nshrnent ol rich, full-cieam cow’s milk 
plus the energising extiacts of wheat and 
malted bailey Hoi licks makes an ideal ^ 
>upplemeni to the daily diet, restores ^ 
health and leplaces used-up energy 

HORLICKS 

gives extra nounshment 

u3«» • . restores energy'. 



77 \ 





1 » ^ ^ ^ f 9 f/E READEiVS DIGEST Fdritary 

\ WW€r to dictate the terms and con- But an industry-wide strike is 

ii|tions under which all wage earn- nothing less than the deliberate in- 

will be permitted to earn a liv- fliction of injury upon an entire 

They demand a monopoly nation for the purpose of forcing 

||lOWcr in industry which they the suffering public to compel man- 

I ^^lfhtly denounce whenever such a agers to accede to the strikers’ de- 

fK}Wcr is sought by managers. mands, regardless of how unreason- 

* The right of the individual to able or harmful to public or private 
jcontrol the employment of his own interests these demands may be 

I labour, and the use of property Manv a strike which the public 
joined by his labour, was once a could not endure for more than a 

j fundamental principle To protect few days has been called or threat- 

lltibc liberty and dignity of the indi- ened against transportation agencies 

I vtdual was the major objective of and other public utilities Such con- 

j ^unionism The workers were not or- duct has no more justification than 

j jganized to get rid of one set of in- other forms of extortion 

! dustnal masters, called employers. It is time for the people generally 
! in order to substitute a new set of to recognize that extortion is extor- 
; masters, called labour leaders They tion, no matter whether it is prac- 
' were organized in order to set used by a racketeer for his personal 
themselves free from all masters gain or by a labour organization to 
and to establish a stxiety of self- make private gams for its members 
governing, self-respecting people, It is the method that is criminal, 
rfCO-operating for the common good regardless of the objective 

Compulsory unionism is more The need to curb an unrestricted 
clearly menacing to the welfare of power to strike has been proved, not 
the people when it is seen that, as merely by the vast injuries done by 
labour monopolies have grown in industry-wide strikes but also by the 
power, irresponsible and vicious repeated use of a costly strike to en- 
uses of the strike weapon have force some petty demand or to 
steadily increased. This unrestricted rectify some petty wrong Not long 
power to injure not only large com- ago a strike of 1,500 American 
munities but all the people cannot trainmen deprived about 50,000 
be permitted to any segment of a other workers of employment — all 
free society. because of a ten-day suspension im- 

A strike against one employer, or posed on two conductors accused of 
a group of employers, may be tolcr- a slowdown* Obviously the union, 
ated as a crude but effective way of the employer or the community 
inflicting a competitive injury It would have gained heavily by pay- 
need not be always regarded as an mg the suspended men five times 
j assault against the public welfare, the amount of their lost wages. Or 



THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF LABOUR 


>954 

the dispute could have been settled 
by a quick arbitration at a trifling 
expenditure compared with the 
enormous cost of idling 50,000 men 
for even a day 

Over and over again we have 
seen such examples of arrogance in 
the use of the great powers now 
held hy labour organizations The 
record proves conclusively that 
labour unions should be compelled 
to accept public responsibilities 
commensurate with their powers to 
do harm, or else such powers should 
be taken away from them 

I offer a practical programme of 
obvious remedies for abuses of 
labour's powers of collective action 

I The creation and exercise of 


monopoly powers by labour unioi^ 
should be made unlawful. 

2 Compulsory unionism, a fomi 
of involuntary servitude, should be 
abolished by law 

3 The right to strike should bc| 
qualified by defining the lawful ob- 
jects, the lawful methods and the 
lawful occasions for strikes. Strikes 
should be held unlawful which arc 
(i) against the public health, safety 
and welfare, (2) designed to compel 
political action, (3) without a pre- 
ceding reasonable effort to avoid a 
strike, (4) conducted with the aid 
or toleration of criminal violence. 1 

We can no longer tolerate civil 
warfare as the means of deciding’ 
conflicts of economic interest 


Slightly Clocl^-Eyed 

1) STAYED much too long with the boys, as usual, and iic’d got tipsy 
—as usual Here it was nearly 3am, when he'd promised her faithfully 
to be home by ii What a row he was in for * He fumbled delicately with 
the latchkey, tiptoed unsteadily across the corridor, undressing as he 
went, and started up the stairs It was here that his chance came As he 
reached the landing the cuckoo clock cuckooed three times For a pre- 
cious moment the mental overcast seemed to clear and inspiration came : 
when the cuckoo clock stopped striking he went right on cuckooing him- 
self, up to II That would fool her He finished undressing in the up- 
stairs corridor, moved gingerly into the room, slipped into bed — and she 
never even stirred. He was home * 

Next morning at breakfast she said “We’re going to have to do some- 
thing about that cuckoo clock, Henry ” 

“Why,” he asked, “it’s keeping perfect time, isn’t it^^” 

“I don’t know what it’s doing,” she said, “but it’s certainly behaving 
very funnily Imagine what happened last night as I was lying in bed 
waiting for you * It cuckooed three times, then it hiccuped, then it said 

damp, and then it cuckooed 14 times more ” --Contributed by Terry HarKreave 




Ritz, the Smss peasant who became the world's 
*at authority on pleasing people in hotels 


Word for 



T he name Ritz has become a 
synonym for luxury in every 
"Western language The story of 
Cesar Ritz, a Swiss peasant whose 
education never took him beyond 
simple arithmetic, is the story of a 
genius who did much to transform 
potel living into an art You will 
find his mark on every continent 
today, wherever an hotel puts an 
accent on grace, comfort and imag- 
inative good taste. 

Ritz lived at the turn of the cen- 
tury, when women were beginning 
to demand equality. He encouraged 
them, helped bring them out of 
their Victorian cloisters. When he 
arrived in London in the late ’90s, 
for example, no woman of good 
family cared to be seen dining in 

f mbhe. Ritz persuaded a few great 
adies — like tnc Duchess of Devon- 
shire and Lady Dudley — to come 
to his hotel dining-rooms. Others 



followed, and soon dining at the 
Savoy, Carlton, Claridgc’s or the 
Ritz — all owned or managed by 
Ritz at one time or another — be- 
came a social must 

Ritz introduced soft lighting to 
flatter women’s complexions and 
show their gowns to best advantage. 
He planned his dining-rooms so 
that women, mounting a short flight 
of stairs, could make an “entrance.” 
He conspired with his famous chef, 
Auguste Escoffier, to create scores 
of dishes that would appeal espe- 
cially to women And he presented 
dinner music— for the first time in 
London Always the perfectionist, 
he chose the orchestra of Johann 
Strauss to play for his guests. 

Cesar Ritz was born in the Swiss 
mountain village of Niederwald, 
and went to work at 16 in an hotel 
dining-room in the nearby town of 
Bngue. A few months later he was 



THB" WORD FOR ELEGANCE 


discharged. “In the hotel business,” 
commented his employer, “you 
need an aptitude — a flair. You 
haven’t a trace of it.” 

Ritz got another job as a waiter — 
and again was booted out He went 
to Pans, where he got — and lost — 
two more jobs His career really be- 
gan with the fifth job, in a chic little 
restaurant near the Madeleine, where 
he climbed from commis to waiter 
and finally to manager. He was still 
only 19 when his employer invited 
him to become his partner. To any 
other young fellow this might have 
been a wonderful opportunity. But 
Ritz knew now what he wanted, 
the world of great names, of epicu- 
rean feasts. 

Rolling up his aprons, he walked 
down the street to the No i res- 
taurant of the day, Voisin’s, and 
went to work as an assistant waiter, 
once more at the bottom He 
watched and learned — how to press 
a duck and carve a roast, how to 
decant a Burgundy; how to serve 
food in a way that pleased the eye 
as well as the palate Everybody 
dined at Voisin’s. Sarah Bernhardt, 
Alexandre Dumas the younger, the 
Rothschilds 

In 1871 Ritz left Paris and for 
three years worked in fashionable 
resort restaurants in Germany and 
Switzerland There opportunity 
twisted the doorknob. 

He was by then restaurant man- 
s^ger of the Rigi-Kulm, an Alpine 
hotel noted for its view and its cui- 
sine. One day the heating system 


broke down. Almost at the samel 
moment a message arrived — 40 ^ 
wealthy Americans were on their « 
way for lunch • 

The temperature of the dining- 
room was around freezing-point. 
Ritz, wrapped m an overcoat, or- 
dered the lunch table to be set up 
in the drawing-room — it had red 
curtains and looked warmer. Into 
four huge copper pots, employed 
until then for holding palm trees, 
he poured alcohol and set it ablaze. 
Bricks were put into the ovens. 

When the guests arrived the room 
was tolerably warm, and under the 
feet of each diner went a hot brick 
wrapped in flannel. The meal was 
a cold-weather masterpiece, starting 
with a peppery hot consomme and 
ending with flaming crepes suzettc. 
The party, warm without and with- 
in, departed chanting the praises of 
the young manager 

This small miracle of quick 
thinking was gossiped about wher- 
ever hotelmen gathered Finally it 
reached the ears of the owner of a 
large hotel in Lucerne that was 
steadily losing money He asked 
Ritz to become general manager. 

In tv/o years the 27-year-old peas- 
ant put the hotel on a paying basis. 
Here he developed the methods 
we associate with liis name. For 
Ritz no detail was too trivial, no 
enterprise too large if it meant the 
happiness of a guest. 

"‘People like to be served,” Ritz 
used to say, “but invisibly^ The 
rules he formulated are the four 



We worn TOR ELEGANtS 


,, commandments of a good hotcl- 
^fceepcr today to sec all without 
^looking; to hear all without listen- 
fing; to be attentive without being 
;,servile; to anticipate without being 
presumptuous. 

“The customer is always right,” 
he said to a waiter, using that now- 
hackneyed phrase for the first time 
If a guest complained of the size of 
a bill he smiled genially, took it 
away and forgot to bring it back. 
If the diner did not like the meat 
or the wine it was whisked from the 
table, Ritz had a prodigious mem- 
ory. He remembered who liked a 
certain brand of Turkish cigarettes, 
who had a passion for chutney — 
and when they arrived these things 
were waiting for them 

He also catered to his more per- 
manent guests. The tall man found 
an eight-foot bed in his room. Mrs 
Smith, who could not bear flowers, 
was never annoyed with them, but 
Mrs. Jones, who loved gardenias, al- 
ways found a bowl of them on her 
breakfast tray 

Ritz combined the imagination of 
an impresario with his other talents 
When Princess Caroline de Bour- 
bon told him he could have carte 
blanche in arranging a fete at Lu- 
cerne to celebrate her engagement, 
he produced a party that is still 
talked about. Waiting at the edge 
of the lake were I2 beflowered and 
illuminated sailing boats, and as 
each guest came aboard, a sailor at 
the stern let go with Roman candles. 
Large boats moved among the 


smaller craft serving food and drink. 
On the four peaks that look down 
on the lake bonfires sprang to life. 

In 1892 Ritz went to London to 
take over the financially tottering 
Savoy Hotel. With Escoffier in the 
kitchen and Cesar everywhere, the 
public responded and the hotel was 
out of the red in an astonishingly 
short time Roving from room to 
room Ritz remade beds to be sure 
they were right, once, inspecting* 
the dining-room, he smelled soap 
on a glass and sent several hundred 
glasses back to be rewashed 

He was studying the redecoration 
of a bridal suite one day, and the 
bronze chandelier protruding from 
the ceiling offended him As he 
looked for a way to light the room 
less obtrusively, the projecting cor- 
nices gave him an idea. He put the 
lights behind them — and indirect 
lighting was introduced. 

Arranging a party for Alfred Beit, 
the South African diamond king, 
Ritz flooded the Savoy ballroom, 
transformed it into a miniature 
Venice Guests were served as they 
reclined in gondolas Caruso sang to 
a gathering which included Cecil 
Rhodes, James Gordon Bennett, 
Gilbert, Sullivan and Lord Ran- 
dolph Churchill. 

Ritz had a puckish sense of 
humour and occasionally played 
jokes on his guests. One victim — 
also one of his greatest admirers — 
was the Prince of Wales, later King 
Edward VII. Ritz served him a dish 
he called Cutsscs de Nymphes h 




THE READER'S DIGEST 


84 

TAurore — Thighs of Nymphs at 
Dawn. His Royal Highness loved 
it. Later m the evening he learned 
that the dish was frogs’ legs, served 
with cream and Moselle wine — the 
Prince detested frogs’ legs 

Ritz’s golden era at the Savoy 
ended with a quarrel between him 
and the directors Ritz walked out. 
The reaction among Cesar’s friends 
was instantaneous Where Ritz 
went, they followed. 

Now he retuined to his beloved 
Pans and realized a dream he had 
cherished for years he established, 
in the Place Vendome, the grand- 
est of all Ritz hotels To discourage 
idlers he planned a small lobby. 
To encourage conversation over tea 
or coffee he designed a garden 
Wishing for cleanliness, he painted 
the walls instead of papering them 
because paint could be w'ashed For 
the design of his furniture he went 
to Versailles and Fontainebleau. 
The colour scheme he borrowed 
from a painting by Van Dyck 

An innovation was the number 
of rooms equipped with private 
baths. On the day of the opening 
people streamed through the corri- 
dors as through a museum, largely 
to inspect the bathrooms. 

The success of the Ritz of Paris 
was never in doubt. On one dinner 
menu preserved by an old Ritz 
employee were the autographs of 
four kings, seven princes and as- 
sorted nobility. Among Britons and 
Americans who lived and dined 
there were Lord Northcliffe, Nellie 


Melba, Lily Langtry, John Pierpont 
Morgan, Jay Gould and Commo- 
dore Vanderbilt. On all Ritz lav- 
ished his extraordinary attention, 
sensitive to every mood and caprice. 

Here Ritz fixed the traditional 
waiter's costume * white tie for the 
waiter, black tie for the mditre 
d’hotcl He also gave the pages their 
brass buttons. 

At the turn of the century Ritz 
built and opened the Carlton Hotel 
in London, and a few years later 
came the hotel in Piccadilly which 
bears his name The latter was the 
first building in England to use steel- 
frame construction, which Ritz, 
enamoured of the Eiffel Tower, had 
insisted on A group of financiers 
joined with Ritz to create the Ritz 
Hotel Development Corporation, 
which produced most of the Ritz ho- 
tels scattered throughout the world. 

In 1902 Ritz prepared a huge din- 
ner and reception in honour of the 
coronationof Edward VII Arrange- 
ments were complete to the final 
detail when word came that the 
King was seriously ill and required 
an immediate operation Ritz at- 
tended to all the details of the dis- 
mantling and cancellation, and then 
collapsed It was a mental attack 
from which he never recovered. 

Ritz lived on until October 1918. 
As he lay dying, he murmured, 
thinking his wife was at his side, 
“Take care of our daughter.*’ They 
had two sons, but no girl. Between 
them, “daughter” was the way they 
referred to the Ritz Hotel in Pans. 



The author calculates that *‘the yoi,” a new electronic 
computer (illustrated), is just 100,000 times the man he is 



Machines That Think 

By Stuart Chase 


ARLY on the eve of the American 
Presidential Election in 1952, a 
machine called “Univac” was 
given a number of cards punched 
with early returns from representa- 
tive voting districts, together with 
comparative figures from the same 
districts in the 1948 election Univac 
digested the cards and almost im- 
mediately predicted an Eisenhower 
landslide ^ Attendants were alarmed 
— the declaration contradicted the 
widespread opinion that the election 
would be exceedingly close. So they 
announced that Univac must have 
had an internal breakdown 
A few hours later all the world 
knew that Univac was as right as 
the pohtical forecasters were wrong. 

As Univac showed, a pretty brainy 
act can be put on by thinking ma- 
chines. Not only can they do as- 
tronomical sums m an incredibly 
short time but they can store mem- 
one's, learn from experience, and 


control the performance of other 
machines, such as drills and lathes. 

The first “giant brain” was built 
in America by Bell Laboratories in 
the late 1950s, as a by-product of 
research on dial telephones How- 
ever, the Mark I, built in 1944 
jointly by Harvard University and 
International Business Machines, 
was the first thinking machine to 
get wide publicity. 

International Business Machines 
has gone into quantity production 
with Its latest giant computer, “the 
701.” Meanwhile, the Bell Labora- 
tories are working on a super-giant 
brain to supervise connections 
among 5<5 million U S telephones. 

Suppose we visit the IBM build- 
ing in New York and inspect the 
701 It was unveiled in the spring 
of 1953 and works 25 times faster 
than the 1948 IBM machine. 

Our first impression is that we 
have entered an ultramodern kit- 

^5 




oo 


THE nS^DEk'S 


chen, with ii units in soft grey- 
bluc — they might be refrigerators, 
cabinets, washing machines — ar- 
ranged along three walls. Our guide 
opens the doors of the various units 
and shows us instrument panels, re- 
volving magnetic drums, a battery 
of large cathode-ray tubes, reels of 
magnetic tape and the slot into 
which punched cards are dropped 
to start things going One unit es- 
pecially rivets oui attention Spar- 
kling and flashing like a display of 
multi-coloured jewellery, it turns 
out to be hundreds of small vacuum 
tubes doing sums 

The whole exhibit could be put 
in your living-room, if not in your 
kitchen — a great reduction from 
the size of earlier giants, which 
would fill a small house. When a 
new device called the transistor’^ 
displaces the vacuum tubes, as 
some da) it will, the whole business 
may fit into a bathroom 

What is happening as the jewel- 
lery flashes and printed tape rolls 
out? The 701, they tell us, can add 
or subtract 16,000 times a second, 
multiply or divide 2,000 times a 
second. On a typical problem it 
performs 14,000 mathematical opera- 
tions a second. These figures mean 
little to me until I relate them to 
what I can do myself 

1 write two four-digit numbers 
on a pad of paper. With pencil and 
stop watch in Land, I add the fig- 
ures — six seconds; subtract one from 

• Sec ' hdbulous Mideet — the Tranawtor,*’ 
The Reader’s Digest, June, 195J 


the other and check — eight seconds; 
multiply them — 50 seconds; divide 
to three decimal places — 80 seconds. 
(These results are the average of 
half a dozen trials with different 
four-digit numbers ) Though no 
lightning calculator, I did learn to 
step along when I got my degree as 
a Certified Public Accountant 

Assuming that the machine can 
multiply numbers like these 2,000 
times a second, instead of once in 
50 seconds, it is clear that the 701 
is just 100,000 times a better man 
than I am * 

What actually happens when a 
problem is tackled? First, the prob- 
lem has to be stated by man Second, 
the complicated equations are 
brought down to index-card size 
These cards are punched not only 
with the problem but also with 
instructions in coded numbers tell- 
ing the machine how to handle it. 
The human programming may take 
hours or days, while the solution of 
the problem may take the machine 
only minutes But no machine can 
do this preparatory work Only men 
or women Preferably Ph D.s. 

In the next step — the third— the 
machine is activated the cards are 
fed into a slot. Fourth, the machine 
stores the data and instructions in 
a memory unit Fifth, the 701 pro- 
ceeds to follow the instructions in 
order Sixth, the result of each com- 
pleted task is stored in memory 
units Seventh, the sub-results arc' 
compiled into a final solution, 
which, eighth, is printed on a roll 



-- ' 8j 


of tape and issues from the outgo 
unit. 

After receiving 963 instructions, 
the 701 can calculate the path of a 
guided missile, performing 1,100,000 
operations in two minutes. (This 
calculation I could toss off in a mat' 
ter of 15 years ) It can compute the 
density and velocity of air at selec- 
ted points on a section of aeroplane 
wing, and thus aid aircraft engin- 
eers in working out new wing de- 
signs. In this instance, eight million 
operations are completed in seven ^ 
minutes — a ]ob that would take a 
desk calculator seven years. 

The human brain has the power 
to store memories and learn from 
experience. When new signals come 
in, we check them with past ex- 
perience before we act. The first 
time we try to drive a car, we arc 
terrified by hazards on every side. 
After 1,000 miles, however, the brain 
has taken in the sights and sounds 
of every mile of experience, and has 
continually refined our operating 
abihty. When a red light looms 
ahead, we remember other red lights 
in the past. Down goes the foot on 
the brake, almost automatically. 

The 701 and his brothers and 
cousins also store memories and 
learn from experience. The memo- 
ries they store are simpler — ^mostly 
numbers — but their power to imi- 
tate this function of die brain gives 
^them the right to be called “ma- 
chines that think.” A computer’s 
memones are stored on magnetic 


drums, on tape or in cathode-ray 
tubes. 

The prize mechanical example of 
learning from experience is un- 
doubtedly the Bell Laboratory’s 
electronic mouse. His body is a 
permanent magnet two inches long, 
his feet arc three retracted wheels, 
his whiskers arc copper wires. The 
“cheese” he seeks is an electric 
terminal. You put him m a maze 
about two-by-two feet composed of 
40 movable aluminium partitions. In 
one corner is the “cheese,” reached 
by only one possible route. You 
throw a switch and away goes the 
mouse, in a headlong scramble He 
bangs into a wall, bounces back, 
tries another direction with energy 
unimpaired Bang, bang, bang* — 
but he IS continually getting nearer 
the goal. Finally, after about two 
minutes of strenuous buffeting, he 
reaches the cheese and a bell rings. 

Pick him up now and put him 
back at the starting point Away he 
goes again, but this time he doesn’t 
hit a single wall. He goes right to 
the terminal without a false move. 
He cuts his time by 90 per cent — 
from two minutes to 12 seconds! If 
you place him in a part of the maze 
not visited before, he will bang 
round again by trial and error 
until he finds a section already 
visited — then off he goes m straight 
course to the “cheese.” Quite a 
mouse* If you shift some of the 
walls of the maze to form a differ- 
ent pattern, he will remember any 
parts which remain unshiftcd. 




THE FIRST AND STILL THE BEST SALTED SNACKS 


88 



MACHINES THAT THINK 


This remarkable rodent operates 
with the help of a thinking machine 
under the metal floor of the maze. 
It*s all the invention of a brilliant 
young scientist, Dr. Claude Shan- 
non, to help him and his colleagues 
improve telephone switching equip- 
ment that can remember the tele- 
phone number you dial, and then 
automatically search the circuits 
until It finds a clear line to the party 
you want The significance of the 
mouse. Dr. Shannon says, h^s in 
the four unusual operations the 
machine performs It can solve a 
problem by trial and error; remem- 
ber the solution and apply it at a 
later date; add new information to 
the solution alread> remembered; 
forget one solution and learn a new 
one as soon as the problem is 
changed 

Humans are too slow in their 
reactions to control the industrial 
mechanisms now coming off their 


89 

drawing boards. The speeds, tem- 
peratures, radiation, complexities 
are too much for the human nervous 
system to handle, and men, the 
engineers say, are becoming bottle- 
necks in production Automatic 
control IS imperative if certain opera- 
tions are to be handled efficiently, 
and the thinking machines are just 
the chaps to be put in charge. They 
never get tired, make few mistakes 
— the latest models correct their 
own mistakes — and they perform 
their functions at fantastic speeds. 

Computers are giving us some 
dramatic sidelights on how the 
human brain stores memories, and 
how we learn from experience. They 
are destined to do a lot of supervis- 
ing in mass-production plants and 
in communication industries They 
will become more and more clever, 
rapid and useful in answering more 
kinds of questions But that is all 
they can do with questions. They 
will never be able to ask one. 


"'There Must be Some Mistake*' 

A hEw MINUTES after the elegant $6,000,000 Pittsburg post office was 
opened to the public, customers began complaining that there was no 
letter box The dismayed postmaster got in touch with the architects, who 
shamefacedly confessed that they had actually forgotten all about that 
important item 

Thl Co-operative Bank of Newburyport, Massachusetts, spent the 
equivalent of ;(^I50 on doing up an empty house Then they discovered 
that the house didn’t belong to them — theirs was two doors away 

When a film studio was annoyed by aeroplanes passing overhead, the 
officials had a huge sign painted on the roof — film studio — quiet, 
PLEASE It was a sad error The pilots only dropped down closer, in order 
to satisfy their curiosity as to what the sign said 






If teen-agers drive recklessly— 


Whose Fault 


N THE TRAIN thc othcf cvcning 
I heard one regular traveller say, 
“rm having a bad time with my 
boy. He’s car mad, and he’s driving 
me mad, too Last night he was 
bragging to us that he had driven 
from our house to George’s place in 
32 minutes through heavy traffic. 
Thirty-two minutes I That’s just 
plain suicide 

“Certainly is,” his friend agreed. 
“Can’t you slow him downf*” 

“Well, I tried,” said thc father. 
“And do you know what he said»* 
He wanted to bet me that I had 
done It myself in less than 40 
minutes.” 

“Have you?” thc friend asked. 

“Well, yes. But I’m an experi- 


enced driver. This boy is just a 
child.” 

There you are. It’s perfeedy all 
right for Father to tear along like a 
speedway rider. But let his son do it 
—a lad who has better timing, bet- 
ter eyesight and faster reflexes than 
Father will ever have again— and 
that lad’s a problem child. 

Where did he pick up thc idea 
that It’s clever to drive so fast in thc 
first place? From Dad, thc middle- 
aged Dan Dare I 

When are we parents going to 
pull ourselves together and realize 
that we can’t ask our youngsters to 
act in one way while we act in an- 
other? 

Take my word for it : the boy in 
thc stripped-down and hottca-up 
sports-car with thc exhaust wide 
open and a pretty girl almost in his 
lap isn’t a whit more dangerous 
than his father, who is batting along 
hell for leather, trying to make up 
time after stopping too long at thc 
club Neither of them ought to be 
driving. 

Look, parents, do you really want 
your child to drive safely? Young- 
sters follow the example of their 
mothers and fathers. Do you plan 
your own driving so that, if your 
children drive exactly as you do, you 
can be satisfied that they will be 
courteous, careful, considerate? 
Let’s give our boys and girls the 
right example to follow They’ll live 
longer and have more fun. For that 
matter, so will we I 



By Paul Jones 



condensed from National Parent-Teacher 


9l 



Taha Hussein's amazing fight for modem fretdoms 
in an ancient, backward land 


The Blind Man Who Brought 
Light to Egypt 


N Cairo not 
long ago, Gen. 

Mohammed Ne- 
guib called a meet- 
ing of the army of- 
ficers who had 
helped him to de- 
throne King Farouk 
and seize control 
of the Egyptian 
Government. In ad- 
dition to his army 
colleagues, General 
Ncguib invited a civilian — ^Taha 
Hussein, a 64-year-old author and 
educator 

Neguib asked Hussein to address 
the group Hussein did not pull his 
pundies. The title of his talk was 
“Democracy.” To their faces he 
told the army men “Discipline and 
order are not enough. A go\ern- 
ment which achieves order at the 
expense of freedom is like those 
behind the Iron Curtain, where man 
is reduced to the status of an ant.” 


By 

Donald Robinson 

Hussein enlarged* 
on this theme, and 
when he finished 
there was silence in 
the room. Some of 
the army men ob- 
viously didn’t care 
for these ideas. But 
General Neguib 
bounded to his feet, 
embraced Hussein 
and, turning to his 
colleagues, said: 

“I want you all to learn Dr. Hus- 
sein’s words by heart. They can 
serve as the cornerstone of our 
movement ” 

For more than 30 years now, 
Taha Hussein has led the fight 
against ignorance and oppression in 
the Middle East. More than any 
other man, he helped pave the way 
for the overthrow of King Farouk. 
And, more than any other man, he 
has made the people of Egypt recog- 
nize the value of freedom of speech 



9 ^ 



nm mmD man tvHO brought ught to Egypt 


and the press. Most important of 
all, he fought till his government of- 
fered free education to every Egyp- 
tian child — the first time any Arab 
country has taken this forward step 
Dr. Hussein has achieved these 
victories in spite ot a crippling 
handicap he has been completely 
blind since he was* three \ears old. 
But his attitude towards his blind- 
ness IS characteristic of his attitude 
towards life — he refuses to recog- 
nize It as an obstacle ‘‘Think of all 
the distractions I’ve been spared be- 
cauie of my blindness,” he said re- 
cently to a friend 
A slender man of medium height, 
Hussein has a lean face and clean- 
cut features beneath a crop of grey 
hair. He dresses in well-tailored 
Western clothes He is quick to 
laugh and easy to know His fea- 
tures are so animated that you soon 
stop seeing the dark glasses he wears 
— you forget that he is blind 
The son of a poor peasant, one of 
13 children, Taha Hussein was born 
in Maghagha, a village in upper 
Egypt. At three he began to realize 
that his brothers and sisters fre- 
quently talked of things that were 
strange to him “Eventually,” he 
recalls, “I knew that they were see- 
ing things which I didn’t see ” He 
had contracted ophthalmia, the 
dreaded eye disease which afflicts, in 
varying degrees, almost 50 per cent 
of Egypt's rural population. 

In spite of his blindness, or per- 
haps because of it, he showed an 
insatiable appetite for knowledge. 


93 . 

He went to the local school, and 
studied at home by having others 
read to him. He memorized the en- 
tire Koran His brilliance won him 
a scholarship at Al-Azhard, a re- 
ligious university in Cairo, and 
from there he transferred to Cairo 
University In 1914 he was awarded 
the first Ph D. to be given by that 
institution, and the university sent 
him to Pans to study at the Sor- 
bonne There he gained another 
Ph D — and a wife, a pretty French 
girl named Suzanne Bressau, whom 
he married in 1918 

Upon his return to Egypt Hus- 
sein was made a professor of Arabic 
literature at Cairo University. He 
taught his students to approach 
every problem with a free mind — 
something unprecedented in Egypt, 
where students were expected to 
accept without question the beliefs 
handed down from previous genera- 
tions Until Hussein, even the myth- 
ical folklore of Islam had been re- 
garded as gospel truth The blind 
professor outraged religious fanatics 
by writing a book which stated that 
many traditional Arab beliefs were 
fairy tales 

The outcry was so great that the 
governrnent set up an official in- 
vestigating commission The com- 
mission found the book both honest 
and accurate, but a strong faction 
in parliament still called for its 
suppression A parliamentary crisis 
resulted The cabinet supported 
Hussein and asked for a vote of 
confidence on the issue. 



Sir Ian Fraser, C H , C B £ , M P , 
Chairman of St Dunstan*s, who was 
himself blinded in the Great War, 
writes of Di Hussein: 

“He IS a very famous man whose 
main interest is free general educa- 
tion for all Egyptians Despite the 
fact that he is blind, he does not 
specialize in blind education and has 
in fact never learnt Braille Never- 
theless, he is an exceptionally well 
adjusted blind man and has done 
some Hrst-rate translations into Egyp- 
tian of the classics, he is, also, one of 
the finest Islamic scholars in the 
world Two of his books which arc 
autobiographical, Memories of an 
Egyptian Childhood and The Stream 
of Days* are shortly to be printed in 
Braille in this country ” 

The vote was in favour of Hus- 
sein. A long step had been taken 
to secure freedom of speech for 
Egyptians. 

In 1930 Hussein was elected Rec- 
tor of Cairo University. NoW his 
views on free speech brought him 
into conflict with Egypt's strong 
man, Prime Minister Ismail Sidky, 
who demanded that Hussein halt 
all criticism of the government at 
the university — or resign 
“Your Excellency is wasting his 
breath,” Hussein replied 
Sidky forced Hussein’s resigna- 
tion, but the blind man continued 
to speak and write against restric- 
tions on academic activities His 
life savings exhausted by doctors’ 
bills for a chronically ill son, he had 
to borrow money to feed his family. 

* Published respectively by Routlcdge & 
Kegan Paul Ltd , and Longmans, G^een & Co , 
Ixmdon 


For three desperate years he risked 
imprisonment, torture and death — 
and turned out seven books. Some 
of them were banned in Egypt, but 
they spread his fame throughout the 
Middle East. Finally, in 1933, Sidky 
was ousted from power. Hussein 
was immediately reinstated as rec- 
tor, and freedom was restored to 
Egyptian colleges 

Those years of struggle made a 
deep impression “I saw then that 
the only hope for attaining true de- 
mocracy in Egypt,” he says, “was 
through education of the people.” 

The right to free public education 
may seem a harmless idea to you 
and me, but in the Middle East it 
was — and, in parts, still is — revolu- 
tionary. Until recently the Egyptian 
Government exacted a fee of about 
£20 a year — almost as much as a 
farmer earned — for the primary- 
school education of each child. 

Hussein fought against this fee. 
“Education and learning should not 
be commodities for sale in the mar- 
ket place,” he argued “They arc 
like sunshine and fresh air, and 
society should deny them to no one 
who seeks them.” 

To this the government replied, 
“The country can’t afford such 
luxury.” 

Cost wasn’t the only objection. 
Farouk and the aristocratic clique 
around him protested that universal 
education was “a radical notion.” 
“If the poor learn how to read and 
write,” they declared, “they will 
become dissatisfied.” 



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The STANVAC BOMBAY REFINERY 
which is fast nearing completion will be 
the first modern petroleum refinery to be 
installed in India. 

This new installation will be capable 
of turning out annually 40^000,000 im- 
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turn the wheels of India’s industry, agri- 
culture and transport. 

The manufacture of these oil products 
within India’s borders will serve to 
strengthen the economic foundations of 
her freedom and social progress. 



95 


THE BUm mm WHO BROUGHT LIGHT TO EGYPT 


‘‘The poor should be dissatisfied 
with their lot,” Hussein answered. 
^‘How else can they get it im- 
proved'*” 

At first, sentiment was solidly op- 
posed to him. Parliament and the 
press attacked him as “a wild-eyed 
dreamer,” “a fuzzy-minded Uto- 
pian.” Gradually, though, he won 
over the great masses of the people, 
and they began exerting their pres- 
sure. 

At the opening of parliament m 
October 1943 an important change 
was announced . “As from this day, 
- primary education will be free ” 
This wasn’t all Hussein wanted — 
fees were still to be charged in the 
secondary schools — but he had won 
a round He agreed to serve as 
technical adviser to the Minister 
'of Education in putting the pro- 
gramme into effect. 

In this post Hussein instituted 
free lunches and free medical care 
for school children Also, he found- 
ed Alexandria University, now a 
thriving institution with 8,000 
students. 

In 1950 a new administration 
asked Hussein to be Minister of 
Education. “Fll accept,” he said, “if 
you’ll let me give Egypt the kind 
of educational system it needs ” 

Anxious for the prestige of his 
name, the new administration 
agreed. Hussein at once made the 
secondary schools free, and put 
through a law making education 
compulsory up to the age of 17. 
This raised a huge problem : How 


to supply the necessary schools and 
teachers.? 

Hussein launched a vast pro- 
gramme. In some villages he was 
able to put up modest new class- 
room buildings, in others he con- 
verted houses to school purposes. In 
a short time he had boosted the 
number of schoolrooms by 2,600. 

To provide teachers, he organized 
intensive training courses and pro- 
duced some 12,000 new teachers in 
18 months To obtain money from 
a parsimonious government, he used 
many a wile, his most effective be- 
ing a letter of resignation which he 
carried in his pocket at all times. 
Once when the cabinet declined to 
give him ^2,500,000 needed for 
teacheis’ salaries he pulled out the 
letter The cabinet gave him the 
money. 

As Minister of Education, Hus- 
sein worked to develop cultural ties 
between Egypt and the Western 
World He had the best books in 
English and French translated into 
Arabic, and sent hundreds of Egyp- 
tian youngsters to study in Euiope 
and America. 

Hussein’s biggest obstacle was 
King Farouk Time and again he 
publicly attacked him and the 
grafters in his entourage. His maga- 
zine, The Egyptian Scribe ^ was 
such an effective spokesman for the 
honest, democratic elements in 
Egypt that the government closed 
it down. An article he wrote en- 
titled “Honesty in Government” 
was so vitriolic that he was arrested, 



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THE READER^S DIGEST 


haled to court and fined for Use- 
majestS. 

In 1946 a committee of eminent 
critics designated by the King nomi- 
nated Hussein for the first Fouad I 
Award, a £1^000 prize for the best 
Egyptian writer of the year. Farouk 
refused to accept the recommenda- 
tion of his own committee and 
cancelled the award entirely 

Hussein had no connection with 
the coup bv which General Neguib 
dislodged Farouk in July 1952 This 
was entirely an arms move, and 
Hussein was in Ital\ when it took 
place. It IS commonly agreed, how- 
ever, that Hussein’s long campaign 
was an impcjrtant factor in under- 
mining Farouk’s hold on the 
people. 

The Ncguib government is a dic- 
tatorship, but Hussein continues to 
support It because of its solemn 
pledge to gi\e Fgypt a genuine 
democracs in the near future One 
of Neguib’s first official acts w^as to 
appoint Hussein to a committee to 
draft a new democratic constitution 

The General has repeatedly paid 
tribute to the blind man People in 
Cairo recall especially the excuse 
Neguib gave for arriving late at a 
diplomatic reception at the home of 
the Papal Nuncio last year “Please 
accept my apologies,” he said, “but 
I could not miss a lecture by our 
master, Taha Hussein.” 

Neguib has given his whole- 
hearted backing to Hussein’s free- 
cducation project. At last count, the 


pupils in Egyptian schools had 
reached a record total of 1,900,877. 

Today Hussein lives with his wife 
in a modest house in a quiet district 
of Cairo. Thousands of books in 
French, Greek and Arabic line its 
walls. Each day someone reads 
aloud to him His other passion is 
listening to music — especially Bach 
and Mozart. 

Hussein spends a considerable 
amount of time lecturing and work- 
ing on the new Egyptian constitu- 
tion, but he devotes most of his 
energy to his writing, which has 
won him fame far beyond Egypt. 
After Andre Gidc, the late French 
no\clist. received a Nobel Prize in 
1947, he was asked by the Nobel 
Committee to recommend several 
writers to be considered for the next 
award “I have but one choice,” 
Gide declared “Taha Hussein.” 

Blind Dr HusSsein has received 
almost every honour Egypt has to 
bestow Beyond its boundaries, the 
universities of Oxford, Rome, 
Lyons and others have conferred 
honorary degrees on him The Bel- 
gian, French and Greek Govern- 
ments have given him special 
awards Last year there was a move 
under way to make him Director- 
General of the United Nations 
Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization. I’he Neguib govern- 
ment stopped It, though — for a 
reason easy to understand. 

“Egypt cannot spare Taha Hus- 
sein,” his government said. 



Deader’s 

J\^ Digest 

ARIICLES OF i iSTING INTEREST • 33rd YEAR OF PUBLICATIO 


A Thousand at d One Lives .... , A, J. Cronin 

‘The Tiouble ‘/ith You Yanks’’ . . Saturday Evening Po^t 

“Himself,” ne Inquisitive Earl .... Saturday Night i 

Out of Th e World American M'lgazine 1 

Quick Wa/ to Catch Crooks .... , Banking 1 

Portuf][al — Europe’s Garden-on-the-Sea , . . Reahtes 2 
I’d Want My Husband to Many Again .... Chatelmne 2 

Blizzard of Flames ^"Fabulous Chicago** 2 

The Queen of Greece Time 3 

How to Help Someone m Sorrow . Chrtstian Advocate 3 
And Now It’s Frozen Biead Nation* s Business 3 


I Saw the Forbidden City . . Satu day Evening Post 3 

Amei v-d’s Shabby Welcome to Visitors. . . Lester Vebe 4 

The Man Who Beat Diabetes .... . . Life 4 

The Freedom to Be One’s Best .... raUrday Review 5 
My Most Unforgettable Character . . May Davison Rhodes 5 

Hospital that Breaks Rules and Cures Patients Today* s Health 6 
European Teen-Agers Look at A.merica. Quentin Reynolds 6 

The hidden Message Drama in Real Life 7 

The Rights and Wrongs of Labour Freeman 7 

The Word for Elegance George Kent 8 

Machines That Think Stuart Chase 8 

Whose Fault Is It? National Parent-Teacher 9 

The Blind Man Who Brought Light to Egypt Donald Robinson 9 
U S Negroes Make Reds See Red • . Frederic Sondern^ Jr, 10 

Must Hospitals Terrify Children? Kedhook 10 

A Ride Through the Sound Barrier . . . New York Times ii 

_ 

“Stay On, Stranger” William S, Dutton 11 



Bid DidiPt Yon Knoxv? 

BY David Mill s 

I I w \s lust past ( arlislc that it happcneil, the Royal Scot 
was raLiHi^ on the last twf. hours of its |ournc\ from 
1 Liston to (jlasL^ow I had wclc('m(.it tlic oppoitunit> to 
ratcli dp on ni\ tca<lini;, and after fnehouis in the tram 1 
thnu'J f I hacl read thiec issut'* of The Reader’s Digest trom 
co\Li toco\ci Suddtnh m\ t\c h^httd on an ad\ crtiscment 
about nioth-prookd carpets 

'sounds a silh sior\, cDcsn’t it* 

HlU I read in that ad' c ttisemcnt that thtte’s a firm in 
SL{)'land tliHt nukes carpets from the wool of hlac k-factd 
Scots sheep and llic'se copets arc pirwanentiy moth pioofcd 
What a hlcssiim, I thoue;ht rememherine kow my wife 
s[>cruls \\eai\ honis e\erv Sprint: i^om': round the (dL;t-> of 
the cat pets in out Mat sprl^^^^ them with some strani^c dis 
infcLiaf>t to k(cp the moths iwa\ We’re nio\ ini; to a new 
flat soo»i, so f made a note (►! those moth proofed carpets 
\nd a*- Wv sill! hid 'onu time before arri\al at (das^niw, 
J beiMn uadino u//rhe ad\ ertisc me nts in thost Digests I had 
w'th me I found information of great interest 

Diet \ou 1- n< , for ..\ample, tnat \ou can take lesscms by 
po^-t to tra'i' \oiir dog f. .r road safety'" 1 made another note 
of that became as we can ni cer mafe our \ounL^ poodle do 
ti- fie’s told \‘ t ne\tr dire let him of] tfie lead near a toad 
and that’s no fun lor him or us 

And then there is the big oriMni/ation which offers a 
service of mock rn loassland management, telling t]it story 
f)f four veais on an I Istcr farm The} stepped up the use of 
U ^-tih/ers from five to nine e'\t per acre and rationed sum- 
mer ena/iru' b\ me in- of portable elec uieally-c harged fences 
wfiieh were moved twice a dav The results were tfiat silage 
proeluc tiou on that farm went up from 8s to fso tons a \ear, 
the consumption of bought feeding stuffs was halved and 

{( nniinuid on in\ide hath cm or) 



By Wilfred Funk 


20 WORDS below, commonly used in discussion of national and interna- 
tional affairs, will also give force or variety to your own everyday talk Test your 
understanding of them by writing down delinitions of those vi ords you think you 
know. Then check the printed definitions which you belie\e come nearest in meaning 
to the key words. Answ’crs are on the next page. 


(1) B\sTiON (bast'-yon) — A a tueptade 

B part of a fortress, C a bat hr mg ram 
D a huge pillar 

(2) coALiiiON (ko 2i lish' un) — A a com- I 

promise B. a defeat C an alliance D a , 
triumph j 

(3) DISCRIMINATORY (dis krim' i nuh tn) 
— A argumentative B disreputable C 
treating unequally D lompletely confused 

(4) EXPOSITORY (tx poz' i tn) — A making 
clear, B: argumentative C impulsive D 
apologetic 

(5) AL a IP Kill (oss ter' i ti) — A pride | 

B severe simplmp C* pomer D great \ 
poverty \ 

(6) PROVOCATION (pro VO kay' shun) — A | 
a publi„ authoritative declaration B a \ 
prophecy C a cause of anger D a denial 

I 

(7) HIERARCHY (hy' ur ahr ki) — A u i 

secret code. B a governing body^ with higher . 
and lower ranks C a vast empire D j 
abrolute power , 

(8) MALiGNiiY (mi lig' ni ti) — A great 
power B ugliness tn looks, C: mistrust 
D violent enmity 

(9) ENFRANCHISED (cn fran' chized)— A 
hired or contracted for B set jree C tm 

/ prisoned D laden or charged 

(10) ARMAGEDDON (ahr rnuh gcd' un) — 
A: a Biblical beast. B an overwhelming 
victory. C any great and pnal conflnt 

• D 5 mythical army. 


(11) BOURGioisiE (boor zhvah zV) — A 
stout people B* poverty-stricken people 
C dissipated people D ptoplt of the middle 
clasc 

(12) iNsLLARiTY (in su lar' i ti) — A oddness, 
B impudence C; narrow-mindedness, D; 
pride 

(13) iNniAit (i nish' i ate) — A to begin 
B to hesitate C to order D to act in an 
innocent n ay 

(14) MAt HiAVLi LiAN (mak i d vel' i un) — 
A unscrupulous B magnificent C: rev- 
erent D pompous 

(15) HOI POLLOi (hoy' pollov') — A a cry 
of warning B a hopeless tangle C the 
common people D nonsense 

(16) COHESION (k6 he' zhun) — A a 

swelling B a clear understanding C a 
thickening D a holding together 

(17) iRiPARi^FE (try pahr' tite) — A shared 
by three parties B sharply d,.puted C 
widely separated D seriously attempted 

(18) CHAUVINISM (show' Via iz'rn; — A 
unscrupulous politics. B: exaggerated patrio- 
tism C buffoonery. D* defeatism 

(19) DotiRiNAiRL (dok tri iiair') — A an 
impractual theorist B. a teacher C any 
system of philosophy D propaganda 

(20) SUBJLGAIE (sub' |u gdtc) — A. to omit. 
B to subdue C. to be modest D: to sur- 
render. 


Answers & 

“IT PAYS TO INCREASE 
tOUR WORD POWER” 

(1) BASTION — B Part of a forttcss, es- 
pecially a projecting part having two 
flanks. Hence, figuratively, “the West is 
the bastion of demc^-racy ” 

(2) COALITION — C An alliance of persons, 
parties or states , as, “The times call for 
a coalition government ** From the Latin 
coalescere^ “to grow together.” 

(3) DISCRIMINATORY — C Dealing unequal- 
ly; showing favountism 

( 4 ) EXPOSITORY— -A Serving to set forth 
and make clear, as, “His expository re- 
marks made the matter easy to under- 
stand.” Latin expositus, from ex, “forth,” 
and ponere, “to set ” 

(5) AUSTERITY — B. Scvcfc Simplicity, 
strictness, as, “For many years England 
has been on an austerity piogrammc ” 

(6) PROVOCATION — C A cause of anger or 
resentment, an incitement to feeling or 
acuon, as, “There was ample provo- 
cation for the citizens’ complaints ” From 
the Latin provocare, “to call forth ” 

(7) HIERARCHY — B Ongmally a body of 
ecclesiastical rulers, and thus any gov- 
erning body with higher and lower ranks , 
as “the hierarchy of the dictator nations ” 
From the Greek hterarches hieros 
“sacred,” and archos, “ruler ” 

(8) MALIGNITY — D Violent enmity; bit- 
ter animosity, extreme hatred, as, “The 
malignity he held for the man was terri- 
fying ” The Latin mahgnM, “malicious ” 

(9) ENFRANCHISED — ^B Set free, as from 
bondage or slavery, endowed with po- 
litical pnvilege, especially the nght to 
vote Old French enfranchire, from en- 
and jranc, “free.” 

(10) ARMAGEDDON — C* Thc Biblical scene 
of thc decisive battle between thc forces 
of good and evil at thc end of thc world 
Hence, ai.y great and final conflict 


(11) ]iocmGfiOi$iB--J:):FeN>(fleo£th€mid^ 
class. A French term often used m a 
demeaning fashion. 

(12) INSULARITY — C From thc Latm i/ww4j, 
“island.” Hence, thc sometimes limited 
viewpoint of islanders, narrow-minded- 
ness, prejudice; as, “Europeans some- 
times charge the Bnush with mulanty ” 

(13) INITIATE — A To begin, to be thc 
first to start, as, “Thc group met to 
initiate the proposed legislation ” Latin 
tmtiatus, from tmUare, “to begin ” 

(14) MACHIAVELLIAN —A Politically un- 
scrupulous, crafty, treacherous, from 
policies recommended by Machiavelli, 
the 16th-century Florentine statesman. 

(15) HOI poiioi — C Greek words that 
mean “thc many ” Hence, the common 
people, the masses It has become com- 
mon practice to say “the hot polloi,** 
though hot Itself actually means “thc * 

(16) COHESION — D A holding together, 
sticking firmly together, as, “There was 
a lack of cohesion in the party ” Thc 
Latin coheesHSy from cohccrere, “to stick 
together ” 

(17) TRIPARTITE — A Shared by three 

parties , as “a tripartite agreement ” From 
thc Latin tres, “three,” and parttri, “to 
divide ” 

(18) CHAUVINISM — B Nicolas Chauvin 

was such a fanatical worshipper of Na- 
poleon and thc imperial cause that his 
name became thc word for exaggerated 
and belligerent patriotism 

(19) DOCTRINAIRE — A An impract cal 

theorist, one whose views arc derived 
from theories rather than facts From 
thc Latin doctnna, “teaching ” 

^20) SUBJUGATE — B To conquer, subdue; 
enslave , as, “It is impossible to subjugate 
a nation of such size ” From the Latin 
sub, “under,” and jugum, “yoke.” 

Vocabulary Ratings 

20 correct exceptional 

19-16 correct excellent 

15-13 correct . . . . .good 


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|s Alufd prisoners ot war began 
M collecting in North Korean 
(Istoikades three Nears ago, the 
Kremlin’s alert Department of 
Psychological W’arfare, Agitpropy 
thought It saw a unique opportun- 
ity to gain converts to Communism. 
To the vSoNiet propagandists, their 
most important Laptivcs were Am- 
erican Negroes, surely these “dis- 
gruntled and rebellious” troops 
could be made into stalwart Com- 
munists without much trouble But 
though Agitpiop worked hard at 
this special project it was an almost 
total flop. After the Panmunjom 
truce, only three of the more than 
700 “libcrate(f coloured slaves of 
capitalism” elected to stay in China 
With the co-operation of the 
army I was able to talk to a number 
of returned Negro P.O.W.s. They 
were men of many different back- 
grounds and various walks of life. 


Hoti/ Negro P 0 W s in Korea 
hamstrung their would-be 
‘*indoctrinators** 

This is what they went through: 

Early in 1951 approximately 80 
Chinese “Comrade Instructors” ar- 
rived at P.O W. camps in North 
Korea Most of these men, carefully 
picked by their Soviet preceptors, 
had university training and an 
effective command of English. A 
dozen of them had studied m the 
United States All were taught 
the techniques which had converted 
manv CKrman and Japanese pris- 
oners to Communism during and 
after World War II. 

Each prisoner was compelled, 
soon after capture, to write a com- 
plete history of his life. This history 
established what sort of treatment 
he was to receive. If he seemed un- 

JOi 



likely fodder for Communism, he 
was sent to a stockade where starv- 
ation diet was the rule and men 
died like flies. If he seemed a candi- 
date for conversion, he was sent to 
one of the camps where prisoners 
were occasionally given a small 
piece of meat, had some medical 
treatment and were allowed a cer- 
tain amount of recreation. Most 
Negroes, for Agitprop's purposes, 
were automatically sent to these 
latter, which were primarily indoc- 
trination centres 

P.O.W. Camp Number Five, at 
Pyoktong, was the largest such cen- 
tre. Here Comrade Instructor Sun 
and ten assistants had a chance to 
work on 1,300 American officers 
and enlisted men, of whom some 
400 were Negroes Comrade Sun, a 
pompous little man in a jacket much 
too large for him, assembled the 
prisoners for his first speech — and 
made his first mistake 

“Comrade soldiers,” he shouted 
from a platform on the camp’s 
parade ground, “we will treat you 
not as prisoners but as comrades 
liberated from the capitalist yoke*” 
Then he pulled out a stop which 
Agitprop had found effective with 
Germans and Japanese. “Hence- 
forth,” he said, “)ou will pay no 
attention to your officers. They are 
capitalist-appointed murderers. If 
they try to intimidate you, we will 
have them shot.” 

Comrade Sun paused for the ex- 
pected response There wasn’t any. 
He saw only stony, hostile faces — 


black and white. Finally a resound- 
ing, rich Negro voice broke the 
quiet. “You just try an’ shoot our 
major. You couldn’t kill him no- 
how He’d take your whole damned 
army apart— Gawd bless him * ” 

The indoctrinators ran into fur- 
ther obstacles For two hours every 
morning they delivered memorized 
speeches to mixed groups of 200 or 
300 P O W s, on the history of Rus- 
sia, on the Communist revolution 
and on Marx and Lenin Then they 
would compare life under Com- 
munism with that in the United 
States A Negro GI summarized 
his reaction to it this way 

“Look,” he told me, “I’m a 
farmer I don’t have too much edu- 
cation, but I can read and write. 
Their stones about the United 
States were wrong No, sir. They 
didn’t know what an American 
was * ” 

The P O W s recalled their end- 
less tricks to plague the Chinese. 
They arrived at classes late, fell 
over each other finding places to 
sit, had fits of coughing, had to 
visit the latrine continually They 
shouted, “Louder* We can’t hear 
you*” at intervals, and during par- 
ticularly violent tirades pulled their 
caps over their eyes and went osten- 
tatiously to sleep 

On one occasion Instructor Sun 
was explaining the similarity of life 
under the Czars to present condi- 
tions in the United States. “And 
the Czar, with his' bloated aristo- 
crats around him,” shouted Sun 



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.with raised fist, **spat upon the poor The major fixed his questioner 
people of Russia as the Wall Street with his deep-set eyes. “I seem to 
money-makers spit upon you ’ ” remember, sir,” he said quietly, 

A lanky Negro from Georgia “that various Soviet commissars 
turned to his neighbour. “Long live have done far more dreadful things 
the Czar,“ he said in a gravelly to many more of their people. I will 
stage whisper that echoed across the tell you something. Comrade In- 
parade ground And from a hun- structor The suffering of the Negro 
dred throats there came a spon- in the United States is almost over 
taneous, solemn, liturgical response- Yours, the suffering of the Chinese 
“Long live the Czar*” The aston- at the hands of your Russian mas- 
ished Sun, literal and humourless, ters, has just begun You aie the 
couldn’t imagine the reason for Rus- people to be pitied, not we” 
sian royalist sentiment among Comrade Sun tried to make his 
American Negro troops anger boil convincingly. “That is an’ 

The instructors had their worst infamous he,” he shouted “I will 


troubles in the afternoon “discus- 
siongroups.”These groups consisted 
of some 20 men who were gathered 
together several times a week to 
read aloud from the Daily Wotf{er, 
write “confessions” about the evils 
of capitalist ways and ask “con- 
structive questions ” The Negroes 
were segregated for these sessions 
One of the individuals at Camp 
Five who attracted Comrade Sun’s 
particular attention was a Negro 
major — a sixfoot-three, craggy- 
faced giant with a soft voice and un- 
failingly gentle manner What Sun 
did not know was that the major 
was a professor of modern history. 
After a “discussion period” during 
which he had dwelt on the subject 
of anti-Negro demonstrations in the 
American South, Sun drew the 
major aside for a persuasive per- 
sonal conversation. “How can you 
Negroes bear these lynchings, these 
atrocities.?” he asked excitedly. 


have you punished * ” But there was 
not much conviction in his voice, 
for the major had hit his most sen- 
sitive spot Intelligent Chinese 
Communists are very conscious of 
the useful but interior position they 
occupy in Soviet plans 

Interestingly, now Sun’s chats 
with the Negro officer became 
more frequent There were some 
things, apparently, that he wanted 
to check But since the instructors 
constantly spied on each other for 
signs of “deviation,” he developed 
a roundabout technique He woulc 
declare heatedlv, for example, that 
the statement that there is a re- 
frigerator in almost everv American 
home was a capitalist lie The major 
would calmly say no, it was quite 
true “How much do they cost?” 
Sun would snap The majoi would 
oblige. “That’s impossible! How 
can you pay that much ?” 

The major, thus prompted. 



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PNnild proceed with a lecture on 
^Hutncrican wages, housing, food — 
was exactly what the Com- 
Ihule Instructor wanted to know. 

Still, camp instructors did do 
*i4^mage. Remorselessly, day after 
^y> they repeated the faults of the 
^American democratic system. Juv- 
enile delinquency, drug addiction, 
gangsterism, the divorce rate were 
catalogued as though they existed 
only in the United States. 

At the end of every week the 
prisoners were compelled to write 
answers to a list of questions based 
on the lectures. If the replies of a 
P.O.W. were not satisfactory, his 
food ration was stopped until he 
wrote acceptably Communist re- 
sponses. 

“This may sound silly to you,” 
an ex-P.O.W. told me, “but that 
process does queer things to you. 
Here I was — a tired, sick, hungry 
man. I wanted that little piece of 
meat, those cigarettes So I memo- 
rized that stuff and wrote it down. 
Some of It sticks with me, no mat- 
ter how much I don’t like it.” 

In 1952 Agitprops evidently dis- 
appoint^ with the lack of Negro 
conversions achieved by the Chi- 
nese, pushed Operation Negro into 
high gear. All officers were col- 
lected in a single camp, Number 
Two, ten miles from Pyoktong — 
there had been too many incidents 
.like the major's neat job on Com- 
rade Sun. In any case. Agitprop 
deckled the GIs would be more sus- 
ceptsbk to Communist indoctrina- 


tion if their officers were not there 
to win their respect with telling 
off the instructors and similar per- 
formances. 

Dr. Chang, a brisk little man 
proud of his two-year stay in the 
United States, confidently replaced 
Comrade Sun as chief instructor at 
Camp Five. Despite the absence of 
the officers, however, he ran into 
the same sort of difficulties that had 
plagued his predecessor. 

“I know New York's Harlem 
well,” he told a Negro group 
“How those miserable people suf- 
fer! I have been in Chicago and 
seen its outrages against the col- 
oured man I have been in San 
Francisco and seen the plight of the 
Negroes there ” A dramatic pause. 
Then — a GI boomed * “Have you 
ever been in China and seen the 
plight of the Chinese?” 

During the transfer of prisoners 
of war near Panmunjom, a little- 
publicized but significant incident 
took place. Singing the Communist 
** Internationale'* and shouting slo- 
gans from a truck, 23 American 
P.O.W s, the only ones who had 
chosen to remain in North Korea 
and China, drove past U.N. detach- 
ments. As they passed a group of 
Negro soldiers, one of the three 
Negroes on the truck told the driver 
to stop and got down to harangue 
his countrymen. He met the stares 
of more than a hundred pairs of 
coldly hostile American eyes— ^nd 
quickly climbed back to safety 
without opening his^ mouth. 




By John Kord Lagemann 

VERY DAY in many hospitals, Levy, child psychiatrist, found that 
- including some with the finest one in every five suffered emotional 
medical reputation, infants and disturbances lasting more than a 
children go through a trial by terror month. 

that shocks parents and inflicts “The situation in the hospital,’’ 
grave emotional scars on young reports Dr. Levy, “is similar to bat- 
patients tie — a dangerous place far from 

I saw a five-year-old boy, sched- home with strange persons. The 
uled for a routine tonsil operation, symptoms of the child are similar 
struggling violently with two doc- to the symptoms of an adult suffer- 
tors and shrieking for his mother, ing from combat neurosis.” 

“Oh, we don't mind it when they Hospitals don’t have to do this to 
scream,” the head nurse told me. children A strong movement has 
“We’re used to it.” developed within the medical pro- 

In an isolation ward, a dozen chil- fession to humanize hospital treat- 
dren had their hands and feet tied ment of children. At Albany Hos- 
down by straps Some were wailing pital in Albany, New York, I saw 
and screaming. “Don’t worry — now doctors and parents can collab- 
they’re not in pain,” a house phy- orate to take the horror out of a 
sician said “They’re just scared to child’s hospitalization. The Albany 
death.” programme, set up by Dr. Otto 

Many children come home from Faust, is simplicity itself: 
their first hospital experience with Find out what frightens the 
an aftermath of night terrors, cling- child, do everything you can to 
ing dependency or fear of strangers, modify or eliminate it, then give 
Ip a study of 124 hospicalized chil- the child the moral support to face 
dren, aged one to ii, Dr. David the pain which can’t be helped. 

Condensed from Redbook 700 


p|llf mrST ^SFiTAUi 

During the five-year study just 
^NDsnpleted^ Dr. Faust and his col- 
^llpagiies found that these experiences 
'aroused the most fear: anaesthesia, 
g^paration from parents, the various 
and punctures connected with 
transfusions, ii>]ections, enemas and 
. lemperature-taking. 

In many hospitals, putting the 
, child under anaesthesia is still a 
m£lee. As one doctor described it 
to me, “the child is picked up out 
of bed without warning, earned 
kicking and screaming to the oper- 
ating-room, held down by sheer 
£orce and smothered with ether.” 

Children arc afraid of anaesthesia 
w because they interpret loss of con- 
sciousness as impending death In 
the Albany study, it was found that 
children who were emotionally pre- 
pared for the operation needed one- 
third less anaesthetic than children 
handled by routine school methods. 


TJSKKiti 

At Albany doctors and nurses 
win the trust of young patients by 
telling them simply and honestly 
what they face. “But no one,” Dr. 
Faust assured me, “can prepare a 
child as well as his parents can. 
Mother or father should be with 
the child not only before the opera- 
tion but when he wakes up. This 
should be considered absolutely 
essential to the child’s emotional 
welfare.” 

In many hospitals, however, this 
is still “absolutely forbidden.” 

Eightccn-month-old Jimmy was 
sent to the hospital with diarrhoea 
and a slight fever. He recovered 
from these quickly enough, but he 
never got over the shock of this 
abrupt separation from his mother 
— the first in his young life. Before 
he entered the hospital he was a 
bright, active baby who had just 
begun to talk. When his mother 


The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, m London, has for a 
long time allowed daily visiting, and mothers are encouraged to come and 
help put their children to bed at night Another hospital, the Bristol Royal 
Hospital for Sick Children, has recently opened a new ward with cubicle 
sleeping accommodation for mothers And at the Royal Victoria Infirmary 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Sir James Spence, the famous children’s specialist, is often 
quoted as saying: “A mother can interpret her child’s health better than any- 
tmy, and tell the doctor quite a bit herself ” 

Even so, a Ministry of Health inquiry showed that only 300 out of 1,300 
hospitals taking children were allowing daily visiting, and 150 prohibited the 
visiting of children altogether Following this inquiry, on March 5 last year 
the Ministry issued a circular to all Health authorities urging them to allow 
“daily visiting of children by their parents, with adequate safeguards against 
the introduction and spread of infection '* 

The Lancet comments. “The Ministry’s request that all hospitals should 
allow daily visiting of children is thus not only wise but necessary Hospitals 
whi^ have already adopted the plan have not found it impossible or even 
specially difficult to administer; and they agree that it has been beneficial ’’ 



Si0>p out 
in comfort 
and style 






jH^khim home, speech had deserted 
completely. It was over a year 
iwfore he tried to use words again. 
I* Abrupt separation from the 
^toother shatters a small child’s faith 
himself and his loved ones. There- 
inafter, like Jimmy, he may see a new 
^situation in life as a kind of booby 
?irap that might blow up in his face 
'instead of grasping at opportuniU 
to experiment and grow, he may 
' simply withdraw 

Under pressure many hospitals 
have lately extended their visiting 
^ hours. But, as Dr Faust told me, 
**thc child should see his parents 
whenever he needs to, not just when 
‘it suits the convenience of the hos- 
pital ” 

^ There arc important jobs parents 
could do. In many hospitals, for ex- 
ample, infants and small toddlers 
arc tied down in their cribs to re- 
strain them from scratching or 
touching bandages or pulling away 
during a painful treatment But few 
children would have to be tied down 
if their mothers were permitted to 
substitute for nurses who can’t giye 
(hem continuous attention 
“When my three-year-old David 
went to the hospital with bronchitis, 
the doctor prescribed steam,” one 
young mother told me “Because 
they couldn’t spare the time to watch 
him, the nurse tied him down hand 
and foot, put a canopy over his crib 
and turned on the steam. I begged 
ihcm to untie him and let me handle 
iiim, but I was told, ‘Rules are 
‘^rulesF For three days David was 


untied only to sleep and to cat. 
Back home, it was three months be- 
fore he stopped screaming in his 
sleep ” 

One of the biggest problems in 
hospitals is getting sick children to 
eat, and here again mothers could 
help Children in one of the more 
realistic hospitals I visited were 
thn\ing on home-cooked favourite 
dishes sent by their mothers When 
all other measures fail, the mother’s 
presence at the bedside is enough to 
get a child to eat I was told by 
doctors of stneral cases in which it 
had saved the patient’s life 

Manv other routine hospital pro- 
cedures which frighten children can 
be modified or f^liminated At Al- 
bany Hospital the only jab that 
tonsil patients have to take while 
conscious IS the finger prick for 
hemoglobin readings and, in some 
cases, an atropine injection Knemas 
and rectal temperature readings are 
often dispensed with entirely. Rectal 
temperature is mfire accurate than 
oral or armpit reading, but the dif- 
ference is not enough to matter ex- 
cept in cases of high fever And Dr 
Faust states, “There is certainly no 
legitimate excuse for arousing a 
child at 2 a m the night before the 
operation for a routine temperature 
check ” 

Feelings have the power to kill or 
cure. Yet, because they cannot be 
isolated in a test tube, cut out with 
a knife or scheduled by the clock, 
many hospitals operate as though 
feelings did not exist. 







the Sound Barrier. 

^ 9 By Bliss K Thorne 


I BROKt the sound barrier. . . /* Not 
many civilians have ever had this ex- 
perience, which IS still surrounded by 
uncertainty, mystery and a lack of scientific 
knowledge 

Air is a fluid. It moves smoothly over a 
plane’s surfaces up to the vicinity of the 
speed of sound* 760 miles an hour at sea 
level, less than thai at higher altitudes. Push 
air beyond that speed and it becomes almost 
as solid as a solid Planes and pilots suffer. 

People living within miles or the air spaces 
where experimental flights are made know 
every time anyone breaks through the barrier 
because of the “supersonic bangs” that ring 
out like catastrophic claps of thunder. These 
noises are two quick, loud claps, followed 
by a diminished third roar. On my trip 
through the barrier neither the pilot nor I 
heard the bangs we were travelling ahead 
of them faster than the speed of sound, and 
so they were iriaudible to us. 

The U S. Air Force’s Starfire (Lockheed 
F94'C) can rip through the sound barrier 
because its wings and fuselage are made to 
withstand the shattering blows. It can*t 
exceed the speed of sound in level flight 
although in a dive from eight miles 'or SO 
above sea level the Starfire can work up to 



Condensed from The New York Times 



A mum ^mROUQH the sounu sakkiek 


\'t I 

r Neville Duke, the famous test j 

pilot, describes in Everybody s I 
■ Weekly (Septcml^er 12), his own re- j 
I faction on crashing through the J 
- Sound Barrier, a feat which he has | 
^ * achieved some 60 times I 

^ “There is still something about J 
\ supersonic dives which provides ten- 
i Sion and an excited cx^ieetancy not 
i unlike the exjicrience of anticipation ' 
^ before combat in war-time ' 

“The human reaction of flying ‘ 

' faster than sound is mental rather 
than physical It is the excitement ' 
and the satisfaction of doing some- ' 
thing new It is test flying at its best “ 


a speed that is still classified as top 
secret but is quite fast enough 
^ In our Starfire, Major Daniel 
James, the pilot, and I were en- 
cased in flying suits designed to 
guard the wearer against blacking 
out (from blood draining out of the 
brain), against redding out (too 
much blood being forced into the 
brain) and against the thin air at 
high altitudes Eight miles up over 
New England, Major James poi- 
ntered about at 450 miles an hour 
Then he pushed the nose down — 
and we headed for a strange new 
World 

As we picked up speed, Major 
James read his instruments and re- 
ported our progress. “We’re almost 
there,” he said . . then, “We’re 
at it I” 

. 'And everything happened at once. 
The wings of the ten-ton fighter 
- wobbled a^ though they had broken 
of the fuselage. The whole plane 
f'bounced and rocked, turned to the 


right, then to the left. It tried to 
climb and then tried to slam itself 
and us down to earth on its back 

The controls reverse themselves 
at that speed if a pilot pushes the 
stick to the left to stop a turn to 
the right, the plane instead turns 
farther to the right The Starfire 
started winding clockwise, its wings 
flapping Major James halted the 
right-hand spiral by pushing the 
stick farther to the right 

Just as abruptly as the buffeting 
began, it stopped “We’re through 
It,” the pilot reported The shak- 
ing stopped and we sailed along 
smoothly — but still hurtling straight 
down 

Then the pilot reduced the jet 
engine’s power to bring it back to 
the subsonic side of the barrier. 
There was no buffeting this time, 
but the pilot did have to reverse the 
controls again to steer the plane 
After slowing to about 550 miles an 
hour. Major James opened up his 
jet control and headed for the bar- 
rier a second time Only now the 
earth was considerably closer. 

Again we hit the sonic barrier 
with the wallop of a bomb If it had 
not been for all the safety equip- 
ment, the belts and big shoulder 
harnesses that held us against the 
seat, we should have been thrown 
about like pebbles. The controls re- 
versed again and the plane tried to 
do an outside loop, diving at an 
angle towards the earth with its 
belly facing up and the cockpit 
underneath. In this position gravity 




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has the opposite effect to a bkckout, 
and I went into a redout — literally 
seeing red because of the excess 
blood that was being forced into 
the head. 

Major James did everything just 
the opposite to what he “should” 
have done and got the Starfire under 
control and safely through the bar- 
rier Again, everything seemed per- 
fectly normal except that ahead of 
the plane’s nose the ground was 
coming at us fast. There wasn’t 
much space left when Major James 
finally levelled off 

The pullout from such a dive 
tests the plane’s construction almost 
as harshlv as does breaking the 


sound barrier. The safety belts I 
gripped us so hard that the imprint 
of light clothing remained on my 
skin for days Gravity works for a 
blackout in this manoeuvre, and the 
pressures it exerts left me limp and 
beaten. 

Having cracked the sound barrier, 
aeronautical scientists are now up 
against an even more fnghtcnmg 
obstruction — the thermal barrier. 
Heat generated by skin friction at 
supersonic speeds weakens metal. 
This IS a problem for the engineers: 
to search out new alloys that can 
withstand such heat, to build a shell 
round the pilot that will keep him 
alive m a white inferno of friction. 


V KKWK/NX XKK/ 

>)oooKy»8oK^Jo«^ 


Shm Chance 

In Manchester, after Mrs Maude Mitchell had produced photo- 
graphs to show that her husband’s alleged cruelty had caused her 
to lose two stone in two years, the judge remarked that the loss of 
weight had enhanced her appearance, denied her separation plea 


Office Daze 

An executivf hired a new secretary, pretty, blonde and eager to 
please He left the office one day and on his return he asked if the 
cheques were ready to sign 

“Don’t worry,” the girl answered blissfully “I signed them for 

you - Sulnev Skolsky ip New York Post 

As RODF up together in the lift one morning, one business- 
man was telling another about a bad day which his secretary had 
had recently Her mistakes got so frequent and blatant that he 
finally demanded, “What’s the matter with you^^ Arc you in lovc^” 
“Goodness, no,” she replied “I’m married ” 

— Dallas (Texas) Mornmn 



Lessmis in Etiquette 

Leopold Stokowski, former conductor of the Philadelphia Sym- 
phony Orchestra, once angered and amused a whole nation of music- 
lo\ers by an object-lesson in manners which he gave his Philadelphia 
supporters 

The last concert of the season was scheduled to begin at the usual time, 
but those members of the audience who took the trouble to arrive before 
the appointed hour were surprised to note that evidently no preparations 
had been made^ for the concert Only two or three ushers were at their 
posts, the stage was dark and bare, and the scheduled time for the con- 
cert had come and gone before a caretaker crossed the platform and 
noisily began to bring in the music stands 

At nine o’clock two performers seated themselves on the stage and 
began to play the first bars of the opening selection, and from timt to 
time other musicians strollctl ip, took their places and joincil in the 
chorus Much stumbling, coughing and rattling ol instruments marked the 
entrance of each man, and almost half an hour went by before the tuil 
orchestra was assembled and read\ to perform in the accustomed manner 
The middle section cjf the concert pr(x.cciled without undue disturb 
ancc, but the concluding number on the programme was simph i re- 
versal of the first Musicians stopped playing fiom time to time, noisilv 
folded their instruments and banged and stumbled tlu ir wav otl the 
stage Dr Stokowski alone rcmnmeel to fact the verbal brukhats ol an out- 
raged audience But though indignation ran high there were no vacant 
scats at the first concert c/f the new season, and the audicme were not 
only noticeably prompt in arriving, but unusually hesitant ahouf leaving 
before the last note had been soundeil \ rn lu. t 

PiKHWs viv first real appreciation of the great truth ol clitjuiUe was 
bo^n when I was playing at the old Onyx Theatre in ( 'hillu c;thc, Ohio 
The headliner was a trained seal w'ho staved with his traine*- m a room 
adjoining mine at the hotel One evening, I cnicrcil the balhicjom, in 
tent C l a refreshing tub Whom should I disiovcr in the h.illmih hut the 
seal, sandwiched between two takes of ice I spoke sharply- perhaps to<i 
sharply -and stalked out in high dudgeon 

Presently I heard the iing of a bii/zcr from tht hath hetwetn, then a 
consifltrablc sloshmg of water I went to investigate arui-on my vvortl, 
friends — the seal had buzzed the reception desk for a biush and w'as 
scrubbing the ring from the tub for me’ Great tears streameit down my 
cheeks 1 never forgot that lesson It taught me in a flash what true 
etiquette s w c 



BOOK SECTION 


Stay On, Stranger” J 


An exlnwrdimry story from 
the Keufuch' mountains 






^4.11 




.1 p 

'v *<- %' - 

V - ’ 


V. 




(()\ni\si I) nwM nil boor 


W ilium S Duiion 

L\i \ loDw the rnountaincms section ot eastern Kcniuck\ is difficult 
of access In the earlv years ot the ccntuiv this lemotc and isolated 
land was almost <omplctel\ cut oil troin the rest ot America, Except 
for l)reeding more [)eoplc, more blood feuds and a denser ij^norance, 
it had hardK changed at all since settlement da\s Until — 

Hut read this unicjucly heart warming and inspiring stor\ ' 

^'9 




“Stay On, Stranger” 


M ost of the houses now have 
windows along rocky little 
Caney Creek, and in Onion Blade 
and Defeated and a hundred other 
dim hollows in eastern Kentucky’s 
mountains. 

Perhaps you take windows for 
granted They don’t in this, until 
recently, forgotten heart of America 
where blank log walls and earthen 
floors ruled for more than a centurv 
The advent of windows has marked 
a dramatic change in thousands of 
lives. Earthen floors have become 
planks; many homes have elec- 
tricity Three out of every four per- 
sons can now read, write and sign 
their names — names such as Martin, 
Hall, Owens, Slone, Watson, Watts 
— ^among America’s proudest 
Today doctors and nurses, law- 
yers, engineers and above all teach- 
ers are at work in the isolated hol- 
lows. And this IS the miracle they 
were all born there Thev constitute 
a growing armv unlike any other 
Each member is pledged to serve his 
people, not until better offers but 
for hje 

It IS an 'irmy of some 1,500 selfless 
leaden 

Pack in igi6, when Alice Lloyd 


came to Caney Creek, none of this 
was true The land had stood still 
since the days of the earliest settlers, 
except to breed more people and a 
denser ignorance Ignorance had 
stripped the forests, killed off the 
game, sowed disease Left was a 
feudin’ and moonshinin’ stronghold 
governed bv the rifle and “short- 
gun ’’ No man worth shootin’ went 
unarmed 

The tiny village of Pippapass, 
where Mrs Lloyd settled, was then 
merely a few lonely cabins with a 
tumble-down log school astride the 
creek For miles around, no cabin 
had a window The average income 
was less than $25 a year Only two 
persons in 100 could read and write. 
In all Knott Count\ there was one 
college graduate, a “furrincr frem 
Amerikv ’’ Over an area peopled by 
more than 100,000 descendants of 
pioneers, there was no public sec- 
ondary school, or hope of one. 
Most school trustees signed their 
name with an X 

Alice Lloyd came down to this 
lost land from Boston, Massachu- 
setts 

“What brung you-uns here, stran- 
ger^' asked a mountain woman, 



her Icast-un of ii children on her 
hip, her face old at 40, her feet bare. 

Alice Lloyd gazed into the wom- 
an’s eyes with the sisterhood of 
despair. She too was 40. She was 
sick, and beaten Spinal meningitis 
in childhood had partially paralysed 
her right side She had driven from 
Boston in a buggy, the last remnant 
of her family’s fortune All else that 
she owned was in a trunk strapped 
on the back 

“Miscr\ seeks company,” she said. 
“Stay on, stranger,” said the 
woman “You-uns won’t git lonely 
here ” 

Alice Llovd stayed on Today, she 
IS over 77 It IS 20 years since she 
has been “beyond the mountains ” 
Her possessions have dwindled to a 
few white cotton dresses and a 
worn-out typewriter She owns not 
even the bed she sleeps in She has 
no income except board and keep 
But look well at that typewriter 
It is a relic of bygone days Because 
her right hand is helpless, Alice 
Lloyd must punch its keys with the 
fingers of her left hand Since iqi6 
that old typewriter has raised 
$2,000,000 in money and more in 
useful gifts For others. 

It has sent more than 200 boys 
and girls to universities, all expenses 
paid. It has educated more than 
1,200 teachers, school principals and 
county superintendents It has pro- 
vided the stimulus for 15 flourishing 
secondary schools in an area where 
Alice Lloyd found none. 

Near where that crumbling log 


school straddled Caney Creek, the 
old typewriter has founded a col- 
lege, something that couldn’t hap- 
pen, but did * 

Caney Junior College, at Pippa- 
pass, isn’t easy to describe in this 
day of labour-saving devices, tele- 
vision and )et planes. It was hewed 
out, literally, from a mountainside 
by sweat, aching backs, mule-power 
and faith Most of its 50'odd build- 
ings, braced against the steep 
mountain slopes with stone and log 
buttresses, are small and made of 
plank There is no indoor plumb- 
ing, and no telephone — that is at 
the \illage shop 

Students do the work, cook the 
meals TheN built half Caney Col- 
lege, and their fathers built the 
other half Yet Caney has a staff of 
20, graduates of some of America’s 
best schools It has 135 resident stu- 
dents Five times as many other 
boss and girls, for whom the 
crowded dormitories lack room, 
would almost give their right arms 
to be admitted Admission is a 
coveted honour, for onl\ potential 
leaders are enrolled They come 
from 50 miles around 

The two-\ear course is a testing 
of the fittest About two-thirds com- 
plete It Most go forth to teach in 
mountain schools About ten per 
cent arc sent on to the University of 
Kentucky 

The college is the heart of Caney 
Creek Community Centre This in- 
cludes a 150-pupil primary school, 
and a public secondary school oi 



about 100 students, ali^ost half of 
whom are housed and fed by the col- 
lege to enable them to attend There 
is a Little Theatre. Two libraries 
hold 60,000 books, and as many more 
books have been donated to other 
mountain schools The Science Hall 
sits proudly amid tall trees 

“Here/’ one of the college trus- 
tees told me, spreading his arms, 
“is a monument to the stubbornest 
woman in Kentucks 

The trustee is himself a mountain 
man, Cane\ -educated He went on 
“She began w'lth two barefoot 
young-uns, ten dollars and her r\pe- 
writer She a^ked no tuition, no 
charge for room or board The gifts 
she received — they ncjw average 
about three dollars — were often as 
little as a bag of potatex^s or a settin’ 
hen. I doubt if she has beei' without 
pain for ten \ears Yet tcxlav our 
college properties alone arc valued 
at $425,000 “ 

He told a story that seemed to 
sum up why It had happened after 
the college had been started and the 
big depression settled down Science 
classes were being held in makeshift 
classrooms, with crude equipment 
The trustees were warned that a 
science hail would have to be built 
and equipped before the following 
spring if Canev hoped to be ac- 
credited by the Univcrsiiv of Ken- 
tucky And there was not one extra 
dollar for the )ob 

The boys of C'ancy and the men 
of the h /Hows and the mules from 
hill farms began work The hills 


supplied stone and timber. When 
the accrediting committee came to 
view the result, the up-and-down 
paths of the Cancy grounds were 
icy, and snow was falling The edu- 
cators skidded and slipped to the 
new Science Hall 
Puzzlement spread o\er their 
faces Walls, doors, windows were 
complete, but there was no roof 
Yet the faces of students ccjuld be 
seen behind the frost\ windows 
The educators went inside ("lass- 
rooms were in order, desks in place, 
teachers and earnest \oung students 
at work, apparentlv unconsLious of 
the bizarre scene Two inches of 
snow' covered the plank door and 
clung to clothing blankets set up 
like tents WTre guarding the new 
scientifu app.ir.itus 

7 'hc instruments were new and 
well chosen It was explained to the 
bcw'ildercd committee lhe\ had been 
presented bv (diaries Kettering, the 
famous Detioit research scientist, 
and that he had also been the ad 
viser on the ccnirscs ot instruction 
“What brought him here?'* asked 
a committee member 
The answer w^as simple He was 
needed He came Perhaps a friend 
had told him of ("anc\ ('ollcge. 
“Such things aren’t hard to grasp if 
you have faith,’’ said a teacher 
“We’ve never been without help 
when we've needed it ’’ 

“But you've no roof over you*’’ 
said a visitor 

“The sk)’s servin’ us now, sir,'’ 
ventuied a senior student in his soft 




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^BiDuntain drawl. “The roofll be 
along.*’ 

The trustee telling me the inci- 
dent gazed at the roof of Cancy’s 
Science Hall, a Bne stout roof. 

“Thanks to that spirit,” he said, 
“we’re accredited by the University 
of Kentucky.” The chin lifted “I 
was born yonder in a hollow My 
father couldn’t write his name But 
he sent me to Caney, and he helped 
build that roof ” 

LICE Lloto regards the first 40 
years of her life as a closed book, 
painful to reopen She was aGeddes, 
of an old New England family, and 
she “belonged ” As a girl, she went 
to the select Chaunce\ Hall school 
and later to Radcliffc College Then 
a job writing feature articles for the 
Boston Transcript taught her how 
the other half lived Her own 
crippling infirmity helped her to 
understand the infirmities of others 
that she found too often there 

Gall must have been in her soul 
when she left Boston for Kentucky 
She had been doing what she 
wanted to do — write — but the ill- 
ness of her childhood had exacted 
an unending toll, which Boston’s 
winters made worse “The doctors 
told me I had to find a milder 
climate,” she said She lost her 
husband bv going, for his career 
was in Boston, and the two quietly 
agreed that no need existed for a 
double sacrifice 

Why to the eastern Kentucky 
mountams^ 


Friends had suggested it as a 
haven because, it so happened, a 
shack was there to be had free for 
the taking. It had been abandoned 
by a Boston church mission. In that 
remote region, friends said, one 
could live on very little. So the 
buggy was loaded, the family driv- 
ing horse hitched up. Alice’s 
mothei, Ella Geddes, then 65, ac- 
companied her After a journey of 
nearly three weeks the two women 
reached a speck on the Kentucky 
map called Ives, on Troublesome 
Creek. 

Ives is about 12 miles “crost the 
mountain” from Caney. The inac- 
cessibility of the region is due to 
the sheer nature of its mountains, 
Its tangle of narrow hollows, and 
the absence of navigable streams or 
other natural passages in or out 
Once inside, you’ve drawn a curtain 
on the outer world. 

Alice Lloyd and Ella Geddes 
found that, the post office at Ives 
was a loft in a cabin. If any mail 
arrived, it was put in a box under 
the postmistress’s bed A ladder 
was the way up “If vou-uns thrnk 
a person might o’ writ, jest go up 
an’ take a Icxik.” the postmistress 
invited all inquirers. She couldn’t 
read 

The meeting house abandoned by 
the church mission had been sold 
for the worth of its timber, but the 
shack known as Hope Cottage had 
found no bidders. Its roof was cav- 
ing in, its floor rotting, its scant fur- 
nishings mildewed. Alice Lloyd 




needed no key, for the door sagged 
ajar. 

Hope Cottage made good its 
name. It opened Troublesome 
Creek’s first window, and it was in 
Alice Lloyd’s soul Through it she 
saw that fortune is largely the prod- 
uct of a viewpoint So, too, is mis- 
ery A small mountain girl made 
"that fact clear 

Wide-eyed, speechless in her 
wonder, the girl in homespun 
looked at the well-groomed horse 
from Boston, at the brass ornaments 
on the harness, at the varnished 
bugg\, all worn and shabby by 
New England standards She 
touched the threadbare sleeve of 
Mrs Lloyd’s oldest coat At last she 
gasped, “Be you-uns a prin-ccss^’’ 

“(Comparing mv lot with my 
neighbours’,” said Alice Llo\d, 
“what had seemed my mountain 
of trouble became so small that I 
was ashamed To them, mv least 
was much It was then that 1 buried 
my past, forgot my ills I knew 
hunulity before my Maker for the 
first time He had given me untold 
wealth to share ” 

She tried to understand whv the 
church mission had failed. It had 
been in the hands of devoted men 
and women, yet the windowlcss 
cabins had closed their doors Proud 
and independent, bowing only to 
the stern ()od of their fathers, the 
mountaineers had grimly warned 
the furrmers to leave. 

“They-uns warn’t kin,” said the 
postmistress. 


Could any outlander become kin 
to these people ? Alice Lloyd asked 
herself. 

One raw winter day the answer 
came to Hope Cottage. It was borne 
on barefoot from Caney Creek by 
Abisha Johnson, called Bysh, clad 
only in the jean shirt that he had 
rinsed in the creek, and his soil-suil 
jean trousers No humbler Sum- 
monser, as he is called in the annals 
of Caney, ever moved to found a 
college 

Bysh was head of a family of mne* 
Their earthen-floored cabin was 
one-roomed with a lean-to. The only 
utensil was a black iron kettle in 
which the meals were cooked and 
the wash was boiled. There Bysh, 
his woman and child after child had 
sickened and shrivelled. There, in 
the night, Bysh had had a vision. 

The man was shaking with cold 
and exhaustion when he was ad- 
mitted to Hope Cottage. He fell 
on to his gaunt knees His speech 
was halting, but purpose was in his 
eyes He had heard, he said, that 
the furrin women asked no alms to 
uplift the mountain folk from the 
miseries that the Lord had visited 
upon them But he owned land. If 
the women would help his young- 
uns, help them to live “not liken 
the hog but unliken the hog,” he 
would give the strangers 50 acres of 
land and a house in payment. 

“Who sent you to us^” asked 
Mrs Lloyd 

Bysh looked up at her. “I heered 
a voice, ma’am,” he said. 



. Come spring, Alice Llovd, her 
mother, the horse, the buggv and 
all they owned moved to Canev 
Creek and the shack that Bysh and 
his km had built for them 
They had a sponsor 

HEIR nei\ home was the tradi- 
tional one room and lean-to, but 
there it broke from the past For 
die floor was planked and it had 
windows 

“Winders^” B\sh’s kinfolk had 
asked in disbelief 
“Thev-uns want winders/' B\sh 
had insisted 

Whv, with winders, a rifle bullet 
could catch a man as he sat in peace 
by his fire Winders for 

trouble. 

One night Mrs L!o\d was work- 
ing b\ oil lamp at her tspewriter A 
rifle cracked and a pane of glass 
shattered )ust over her head vShe 
kept on working A second pane 
shattered, and a second bullet 
plunked into the plank wall op- 
posite She had glass in her lap 
Next morning a mountain man 
silently replaced the broken panes 
without being asked After he had 
finished, he drawled as if remarking 
on a bit of disagreeable weather, 
“That'Un'll bother \ou-uns no 
more, ma am We-uns figgered he 
needed to move.*’ 

He was lean and straight, and his 
short gun swung easilv from his 
hip flis riding mule glistened 
As he mounted he said, “W'c- 
uns are dose bv if sou-uns want 


ns The name is Slone, ma’am.” 

Maafyj, not stranger^ 

The furrin women had a new 
sponsor 

Slone tribe was powerful. Of 
them, \oung Commodore Slone, 
who had had elcmentarv schooling, 
taught at the tumbling log school 
That fc^ct signified much Feuding 
families elected the school trustees, 
who hired the teacher, and the can- 
didate backed In the best guns 
won “In them ckus," an old-timer 
tolci me, “a tew dead men Kin’ 
about a p(»llin' place wasn't unusual 
in elcLtin’ Uiistees He grinned 
“I'm not a-sjMn' Commodore got 
to be teacher that v\a\, but bein’ a 
Slone sure wasn’t held against 
him ’’ 

Big, eas\ going Commodore Slone 
agreed to let Mrs Llo\d call a meet- 
ing of parents in the school So 
manv came thu, when the men got 
to one side to talk, tlu underpin 
nings on that side ga\c \\a\ and the 
log structure tilted cra/iK 

“Looks as if we need a new 
school,” said Mrs Llo\(] 

That brought good natured laugh 
ter 

“We're going to get one,” she 
said 

The meeting sobered A man 
asked, “Where wc-uns going to git 
the monc\ 

“I’ll get the monev,” she said 
“But 1 want every man’s help when 
it comes time ro build, and I want 
\our good will now ” 




Then she made three promises: 
not to mix in their politics, not to 
meddle with their moonshinmg and 
not to interfere in their religion 
“Stick to that, ma’am,” said the 
quiet-\oiccd man who had mended 
the window, “and we-uns and you- 
uns will get along ” 

Throughout the \ears Alice 
Llo\d has kept her word No meal 
IS served in (fancy’s dining hall to- 
d iv until somebody rises and savs 
grace No Sunday evening passes 
without the singing of hvmns, and 
'disc jssions of the right or wrong in 
life Nowliere have I found so un- 
wivering a faith in the bidding, 
“Ask, and It shall be given vou; 
seek, and ve shall find ” i^ut no per- 
son in (\inev could tell me Alice 
Llovd's religion Ot her politics 

1 iiK the meeting in the scIkk)!, 
Ella (itddes and Alice Llovd drew 
up A list of ^0 friends in Boston 
and else where who might help 
make a new school possible To 
each diev wrote a lettci "1 hey told 
of the needs of the pec^plc for 
clothing and shoes, esen things so 
small as needles and pins, and forks 
and spoons, iMit doubly for books, 
teachers and real schcxils 

Schools that would bring to the 
fore those children who were most 
capable of advancing Then, u[X)n 
the capable, future (fTort could be 
centred. Leaders must be educated, 
selfless men and women who would 
come to the rescue of their people 
Leaders? In those starved hills? 


The vision was beyond all reason. It . 
defied the conclusions of the author- 
ities who had studied the plight of 
the Southern Highlands. Genera- 
tions of stagnation, they said, had 
made incompetents of all but a 
negligible few The most to be 
hoped was that the simpler trades 
might be taught Leadership must 
be sought from outside 

‘ The leaders are here"' wrote 
Alice Llovd stubbornlv ES, 
LEADERS*” and she banged out 
the words in black ca[iitals “Dck- 
tors and law vers and engineers, 
school principals and ministers and 
public olEicials IhevVe here, and 
thev must be toiincl and given the 
chance ” 

None of the friends to whom the 
letters went were iich Most of 
them w'cie women Alice Llovd had 
known in college or in her news- 
paper work Hut the railwas office, 
n miles distant b\ the ^.leck trail, 
soon reported an odd asscatmont of 
bundles and boxes coming in, ob- 
viouslv slIU In imateur packers 
hortv homes ui New England had 
cleaned out attics and emptied old 
trunks hver\ letter brought gifts of 
some kind one i cheque for ?5,ooo. 

A Vassar friend wrote ‘d’ve no 
monc\ to send Init I can teach You 
have a vear of mv time c»n call, 
longer if \ou need me” From 
graduates c^f other famous colleges 
came similar oflers A hundred or 
more ctillege-trained women rallied 
to Alice Llo\d’s call during the next 
ten vears Thev took over Cancy 




$chcx>l> and Commodore 
Wkcait took a seat among his pupils. 
t'^’Hcrc’s my proper place,” he said 
!,Thcy took over other log schools, 
paying expenses from their own 
kcts, working for a very small 
or without salaries at all. 

One of the women was June 
Buchanan. She had )ust completed 
her third vear of postgraduate work, 
preparing for a career in higher 
education She never went back for 
it, and today is Canev’s dean of 
women, sccretar\, treasurer and a 
trustee. “How could I go back^“ 
she asks. June Buchanan became 
Alice Lloyd’s right arm 

Bv mules and pack horses, the 
books from Boston went out to re- 
mote cabins There Moonlight 
Schools were held, to which came 
folks from neighbouring cabins 
Parents Tamed readin’ and writin’ 
while the young-uns pLi\ed With 
quiet dignitv mountain men un- 
loaded their guns and left them b\ 
the cabin door, as a simple courtesy 
to their hostess 

From the monev raised b) the 40 
letters Canev got its promised new 
school, a thing of wonder with six 
classrooms It was painted white, 
and the walls were mainly win- 
dows. Alice Lloyd looked ahead a 
generation, and Bysh Johnson’s en- 
tire farm of 150 acres was pur- 
chased for $1,000, as the property 
of the Caney Creek Community 
Centre 

A shOf* was opened, using as 
stock the clothes and shoes, the 


needles and pins, from Amcriky. 
To it came the countryside, with 
vegetables, eggs, berries and what- 
ever surpluses the starved hills 
might yield The surpluses were 
traded for shoes or dresses the 
mountain folk asked no charity To- 
day, the Caney Exchange Store is 
an institution The food that it 
trades in, its main currency, sup- 
plies the meals of half Canev 
Centre’s 200 resident students 

The 40 friends in New England 
were not 40 for long Thev passed 
the word to their friends, and those 
fi lends passed it on to others, all 
over America Toda\ almost 
20,000 names arc on Alice Llosd’s 
list, and the ancient tspewrittr 
rattles and creaks under the burden 
of Its endless task of saving, “Thank 
\ou. Friend “ 

EsisTiNc. the wavs of the moun- 
tains brought many trials to (^mey’s 
teachers Sometimes ihcv vvere be- 
devilled out c^f sheer cussedness. 
“Flingin’ rocks” is a mountain pas- 
time, like whittlin’ or banjo pickin’, 
and the furnn teachers often made 
fine targets for skilful stone- 
throwers The ide.i was to ncar- 
miss, and the nearer the miss, the 
more the fun. Ncar-missin’ with a 
rifle bullet was even belter sport 
when .1 man’s eye was sharpened by 
moonshine liquor. 

The mountain fTcoplc’s ingrained 
suspicion of all outlandcrs was hard 
to overcome. During World War I, 
when the draft was calling up many 








^ilDtintain boys, the rumour got go- 
that Alice Lloyd was a German 
^Wy- The angry story grew. It was 
that Mrs. Lloyd schemed to 
Jjjlow up everybody once she got 
into one place A recreation 
was built It introduced petrol 
;}amp$. The night of its opening 
jabout 150 mountain men and 
^ women gathered. They stood in 
.‘imiinous groups, the men fingering 
'"'llieir guns. Nobody would enter the 
hall. 

Mrs. Lloyd got a woman aside 
*‘What’s wrong she asked “Whv 
-are you all waiting outside^'’ 

The woman pointed to two petrol 
'tanks under the building, the 
supply for the lights “It’s them 
tanks,” she said “Folks say yew air 
goin’ to blow up we-uns soon’s we 
go in.” 

Not until the tanks were remo\ed 
to the creek did a person enter the 
hall. 

Two schoolgirls died, perhaps of 
influenza. The whisper started that 
Mrs. Llo>d had poisoned them No- 
body spoke openlv, but like a fog 
suspicion settled everywhere Some 
said later that u was started b\ poll 
cicians who wanted no lamin’ in 
those parts. 

How do you fight a fug^ A thing 
you can neither pin down nor strike 
back at. 

“You don’t fight,” Mrs Llovd 
told me. “You wait These people 
1«ttlc such matters m their own 
way. They had no trust in law 
courts. Whether or not 1 had mur- 


dered tnose girls had to be ined be- 
fore their own hearths. I must have 
had friends, for in time the verdict 
was not guilty.” « 

The Caney High School was 
started m 1919, the first in a radius 
of 30 miles. It had two pupils, 
which was a majoi Mctory The 
sceptics had said that not two per- 
sons in the mountains could be 
raised to secondary school level 

“We hadn't changed the people,” 
said Mrs Llo\d “We had inercK 
given them new teachers ” 

Within the next five \ears seven 
other secondary schools were opened 
in the surrounding eountrvside 
Each was made possible b\ donated 
funds and the efforts of volunteers 
from the women’s colleges The 
state of Kcntuckv has since merged 
all the schools into the public 
school s\stem, which now cncom 
passes 15 secondarv schcxds in the 
same area Canev (>)llcgc supplies 
most ol the teachers for both 
secondarv schools and primary 
schools 

The college was begun in 
also with two pupils But, In then, 
100 pupils were in training in tnc 
new secondarv schcxils The college 
was tree Ability to learn, not 
ability to pay, was made the 1^)11 
rule for admission Parents m.iv 
make a giiodwill offering if they 
wish, and most of them do What is 
given IS known only to a few and to 
the giver; no distinctions are made 
among the students because of^it. 

However, a lifetime fee is exacted 



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of every boy or gir! who enters the 
college. It IS the unwritten pledge 
“to settle in the Southern Moun- 
tains and take a decided stand for 
capable and consecrated citizen- 
ship.” 

Is the pledge kept^^ 

“A week ago I would have an- 
swered, ‘Not always,’ ” Mrs Lloyd 
said. “One boy seemed to have been 
lost. He had been awav seven years 
All that we knew was that he was 
with a military mission in Asia I 
took his picture from the wall — the 
first. Then, next day, he walked in 
He was back home to sta\ ” 

The pull that brings Caney’s 
chosen leaders back is terrific. Their 
training in the Canev ideal of ser- 
vice begins at the age of six It con- 
tinues uninterruptedly through 
secondary school and two years of 
college. The schools operate all the 
year round, and they are as secluded 
as a convent The one place to go is 
home, even deeper into this moun- 
tain world. Perhaps, to the out- 
iander, the comforts of Caney may 
be few, the buildings crude, but, to 
students, merely being there means 
a long step upward. In their grati- 
tude, the inspiration of Mrs. Lloyd’s 
“slit of infinite sky” goes deep 

I talked with a Caney boy who 
was leaving for the University ot 
Kentucky, and later, he hoped, for 
the Medical School of the University 
of Louisville. I asked him why he 
planned to return. He looked at me 
wonderingly. The question had 
been settled when he gave his word. 


Where the art of writing is still 
new, and the written contract is un- 
known, a man’s word is his bond. 
And you accept it if you would 
“stay on, stranger.” 

The college rules are austere. A 
story is told about two Caney boys 
at the University of Kentucky It 
was a scorching day. They were the 
only two men in the mixed class 
wearing coats and ties 

“You may remove your coats,” 
invited the professor 
The boys thanked him, but their 
coats stayed on “We’re from 
Canev,” one of them explained after 
class “We were taught to wear 
coats when ladies are present We 
hope you don’t mind, sir ” 
However, the “no guns” rule was 
once broken by a student leader. A 
gang of young die-hards boasted 
that thev were going to shoot up the 
boys’ dormitor) The^ named the 
night Such a boast couldn’t be ig 
nored A council of war was held in 
the dormitory Every boy wanted 
to rush home for his gun. The stu- 
dent leader ruled there would be no 
gun except his own That night he 
slipped home, fetched his short-gun 
and hid it under his mattress. 

Next night, as promised, the gang 
appeared Its six members we»*c well 
mc)onshined The student leader 
tocjk his stand in the open door- 
way, gun in hand. He was known 
to be a dead shot. As soon as the 
marauders were in range, he proved 
his skill by sending a hat spinning 
from the head of its wearer. 





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•That’s just a warning,” he 
called. ‘The next-un is gom’ to be 
where it hurts somebody ” 

The gang melted into the night. 
It never came back. 

But a rule is a rule at Caney The 
leader was not graduated He was 
relieved of his^ post by Mrs 
Lloyd, reprimanded, and sent home 
— to go on to law school with a 
Caney scholarship that paid all ex- 
penses. Today, he is a leading 
lawyer. 

Eagle’s Nest, as the students 
call Mrs Lloyd’s office, is perched 
well up on the campus’s sleep hill- 
side. Its bleak plank walls are hid- 
den behind pictures of Caney 
graduates Home-made tables of un- 
finished wood are a foot deep in 
books, records and letters. A bare 
clectric-light bulb illuminates the 
old typewriter and its mistress, 
whom you will find at that post 12 
hours daily, seven days a week The 
office is barracks-like and comfort- 
less, but look closelv you might 
mistake the small grey woman in 
white for a figure of the Madonna 
Her dedication affects all around 
her. 

One of these is Carew Slone, 45, 
Caney’s mountaineer printer, a 
lean, wiry man with a touch of 
rheumatism. He has a wife and ii 
children, and his wages are a third 
of what he might make in a town 
job. His day begins before dawn, 
and ends whenever it may He takes 
no pay for the use ot his truck 


(which IS the college transport 
corps), though it cost him more 
than a year’s wages. Why should 
he^ he asked when I raised the 
question. 

“Caney’s teaching my children,” 
he said “I’m doing what I can for 
It “ 

His faith IS simple what Mrs 
Lloyd says can be done, can be 
done He doesn’t doubt 

Some )ears ago, he told me, Alice 
Lloyd was approached by a large 
manufacturer He offered her a sal- 
ary of $^50,000 a year to quit Cane) 
and become his advertising man- 
ager 

“She’s still here, drawin’ nothin’ 
a year,” said Carew “And you ask 
me why I don’t ask hire for my 

truck C’ 

William Haves, Caney's vice- 
president and Dean of Men, is a 
graduate of the Uni versa \ of Mis- 
souri He studied at the University 
of Wisconsin, and knows the world 
Yet Carew’s faith is equally his 

“The usual rules of business don’t 
mean much here,” he said. “We 
start each year with nothing, often 
end It with less, and yet we grow. 
That’s been true for almost 40 
years (^.aney keeps going, with free 
stud^^nts, no assured income, no en- 
dowment, no government giants. 
To us, ten dollars is a substantial 
gift, yet — I’d like to show you 
something ” 

He showed me the stone founda- 
tion of a new building among the 
trees bordering Caney Creek. 




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'Weeds grew in what was intended 
to be the basement some day. 
Plainly no work had been done for 
a year. 

“That’s our new girls’ dormi- 
tory,” he said. “Wc need $30,000 
to complete it. How we’ll get the 
money, or when, wc don’t know, 
but we do know this the money 
will come* Against that certainty, 
we’ve begun our building ” 

<2i0ANEY’s old students include 
more than 1,200 teachers, 15 college- 
trained engineers, four ministers, 
seven nurses, ten lawyers and ten 
physicians. 

* “If the only result of Caney 
were Denzil Barker,” Alice Lloyd 
told me, “we could still hold up 
our heads.” 

Dr. Dcnzil Barker accepts all 
calls regardless of how remote or 
poor may be the cabins from which 
they come. Or the hour of the 
night, or the season. 

He. was^-born in a mountain 
shack, and first walked to Caney 
without shoes In due course, Caney 
sent him on, an honours student, to 
the University of Kentucky From 
there he went to study medicine, 
Caney paying his way even to the 
clothes on his back A dozen 
famous institutions would have 
welcomed him, but Dr. Denzil 
Barker’s plate is on a modest 
second-floor surgery opposite the 
county court-house 

His most valued property is an 
ex-army jeep, the one vehicle that 


can negotiate the “roads” of the 
hollows. Where the hollows are 
dead ends and roadless like Onion 
Blade, he plods in afoot, or mounts 
the mule sent to meet him. 

His surgery is crowded with pa- 
tients by day, and night calls leave 
him little time for sleep. But he 
isn’t awed by the magnitude of his 
task “My value here is that I’m one 
of these people,” he said. “So they 
listen to me 

“Right now,” he added, “I’m 
barely holding the line But others 
are coming on, both doctors and 
nurses. Caney is seeing to that ” 

His fees? 

“Mountain people pay what they 
can, that’s all anybody could ask. 
They pay as certainly as the sun 
rises. You don’t need to send bills 
And they don’t forget a service ” 

T CoRDiA, on Lotts Creek, a 
smaller version of Caney itself has 
blossomed Its founder is another 
Alice 

When Alice Slone was 13, Mrs 
Lloyd gave her $15 and told her to 
go to Cleveland, Ohio There a 
friend would take her into her home 
and treat her as a daughter A 
single promise was asked “Some 
day, child, I may ask you to return 
Then, without question, you must 
come ” 

“I promise,” said Alice Slone. 

She went to a Cleveland second- 
ary school, on to a business school, 
and then to the University of Ohio. 
Upon graduating from the univer- 






sity, she was thinking of getting 
married. She was 23. Then Cinder- 
ella's clock struck ‘12. 

“I cried bitterly when the word 
came to go back to Kentucky,” 
Alice Slone told me. She smiled 
“But here I am, and I’m glad.” 

Her youngest sister was trying 
vainly to start a secondary school 
on Lotts Creek, in addition to the 
primary school she was teaching 
A feud was being waged between 
the up-creek and down-creek folks 
over which would control things. 

“Mrs Lloyd told me to get that 
secondary school going somehow,” 
Miss Slone said. “How I did it was 
up to me I knew less about the 
Lotts Creek feud than I knew about 
Baghdad, so of course I barged right 
into the middle of it ” 

Alice Slone decided to begin 
with a library, and get the children 
to build It. The boys were not big 
enough to handle logs, so light trees 
were substituted The boys built the 
walls, then ran into difficulty Put- 
ting on the roof was men’s work 

“I asked the down-crickers to 
help, and they promised,” Miss 
Slone recalled, her eyes twinkling. 
“The up-crickers promised, too, not 
knowing I had asked the down- 
cnckers On the appointed day, both 
sides sent men Every man had his 
gun, for that was usual. On sight, 
the two factions squared up, each 
thinking the other had come unin- 
vited and ready to fight. 

"“I was in the middle. The chil- 
dren stood by wide-eyed. I pre- 


tended that everything was lovely, 
and made a little speech. I said it 
was simply wonderful how moun- 
tain men always kept their word, 
even forgetting their own differ- 
ences to do so. 

“The opposing leaders edged off 
to one side. The decision on which 
they agreed, I learned afterwards, 
was that thciC was no point in argu- 
ing with a woman. They asked me 
who was to boss the job. 

“ ‘I will,* I said, and meant it. 

“ ‘You-uns heerd her, boys,* said 
one of the men, grinning ‘We-uns 
better git to work.’ ” 

In 1933 the library of Lotts Creek 
Community Centre was opened 
with a dozen books on its shelves. 
They were Alice Slone’s old college 
textbooks, a mail-order catalogue 
and a Bible. Today, its shelves are 
full Nearby are girls’ and boys’ dor- 
mitories, a recreation hall, three 
service buildings, and a school sur- 
rounded by Its own gardens. 

“The school belongs to the state, 
but all else is the property of the 
Centre,” said Miss Sloane “The 
same methods that built Caney 
Centre built ours, though the two 
are independent. Many times I 
doubted the wisdom of Mrs. 
Lloyd’s ways I had brash ideas 
of my own, which I tried. Hard 
experience and time proved me 
wrong Credit for Cordia High and 
all else here belongs to Alice Lloyd.” 

“It belongs to Alice Slone,” said 
Alice Lloyd “My one credit is that 
I discovered her.” 









yfle Palyne^ian Moon of New Zealand 
like the later English settlers^ from 
mer the sea to this lovely land with tls 
varied oj wncry ranging from alpine to 
tropical. Brave, intelligent and industrious, 
ihc Maori is held in much esteem by ^ 
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Is mt targey but its healthy, temperate 
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the farmer added to the numbers of his T 
dairy herd each year <io that his milk pro- READER’S DIGEST 

duction rose from 22^ to ^44 gallons per itBRUARv i‘>^4 


From pondcrinii; the relative meiits f>f 
manure and modern fertilizers, 1 noted 
that one can travel the th< usands of 
miles across the rmted States to San 
iTancisco by mot(»r coaeh tor I in \ 
paper-making concern pa^^sed on the 
\\elcome news that more and more 
bakers a^'e n(»\v selhni^ their bttael 
\c’rappcd in \\a\ed, i^ttase proof paper 
Anf)thcr British papet corporation de 
talk'd the astoni^hin'j account ot Hn 
actiMties in Itnnesscc., in the heart ot 
Atnerua, whetc it has been buildmt^ a 
y 20, >0 pi ilp and paper mill that 
will [iTodiKc S'' 000 tons ot siilpha»e 
pulp and Mn,c->n ton's of newspiint per 
ye ir \nd the output has alteacb been 
sold, fot th< nt\l is \cars, inx dolLirs' 
\nd then, theic 1 was at Cdasi^ow 
What a wealth ot intormation theie is 
in '1 ne Rtadei’s Diuest in the adeettise- 
ment', a'' well as in the editorial pai^es 


Ot'K ( o\ 1 K /I */ iidluiinn (ff oH nai^iutil 
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hreefi the fiav^ th hack wail lhi\ n 
"^Ihi (aldtn Chtruh^'" Irom a ^mw’dinn 
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oj] the Lormd) ioa\t hy i aptain \homa\ 
Jaioh Carved hy (ainhnv, Cahhori\ (ih4K 
1720), ivnod-iarver^ aulptor and • ollalxaa/or 
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TWO LANGUAGES? 

By G 'y, Carey 

A IT THOR OF AmfRICAN INTO EnGLISH* 

W AS IT Chesterton or Shaw, or some other, who furn- 
ished after-dinner speakers with the aphorism about 
Britain and America being ^‘divided by a common lan- 
guage”^ I regretfully confess my ignorance, yet, discarding 
epigram, I believe it to be truer to say that a bond between 
the Britain and America of today is their share in two 
kindred languages. For since the landing of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, with the gradual influx of settlers from many na- 
tions, American speech and writing have naturally and pro- 
perly tended to diverge from the parent tongue There is 
thus nothing derogatory in saying that there ha® ieveloped 
in the United States a separate and distinct U rm of the 
English language Some (on both sides of the Atlantic) may 
account this an exaggeration Yet consider the several cate- 
gories of difference between English and American usage 
First and most obvious are the spelling variations, where- 
in America probably — and with some reason — prides her- 
self on phonetic common-sense Obvious, yes, and for the 
most part familiar to English eyes {honor ^ marvelous^ program^ 
and all that), but more numerous, Fll be bound, than many 
realize — ^for instance, what about cor^y, good-bj, skeptic^ 
maneuver^ vise (the thing you grip with), tire (the thing you 
skid with)^ 

Next there are the words — dozens of them — to which 
English and Americans attach a different meaning. Pan/Sy 
suspenders — of course we all know how they suffer a sea- 
change, and crackers y dessert, and a few more may be nearly 
as familiar. But how many know the American meaning of, 
c,^,jyardy orchestra (in a theatre), hood (of a car), and the verb 
instanced by Sir Winston Churchill as a source of misunder- 
standing and consequent acrimony at an Allied council of 

war to table. j j u x 

{C^ontmued on inside back cover) 








Monsoon 

on the West Coast 






South from Bombay, stretching for 
400 miles to Mangalore, India’s West 
Coast is unconnected by rail except 
for a link line running do\\n the Ghat 
to the harbour of Marmagoa With no 
minor ports or rail de\ eloped, markets 
on 'this stretch of coast depend on 
“country craft” for their supplies and 
It IS during March and April that 
every effort must be made to stock all 
coastal points with sufficient supplies 
for the duration of the monsoon 

As far as petroleum products are 
concerned, this operation calls for a 
great deal of preparation each year 
In an effort to assist Agents and 
Dealers, Burmah- Shell have erected 
or rented large godowns placed in 
charge of the Agent and at Chiplun, 
Ratnagiri and Karw^ar, “depots” have 
been built, controlled by their own 
staff 

Main installations in this area are 
at Bombay and Vasco-da-Gama 
where different products and packages 
await careful shipment Where the 
Company does not have its own 
controlled depot, the Agent must 
arrange for 'he country craft himself 
Despite steamships, “country craft” 
—-nearly 4,000 in number with a t9tal 


Condmts$d from * / 

the “ Burmak-Shell News ” > 

tonnage of 250,000 — still siraopofiee 
the trade along India’s 2,500-mile 
coast 

There is a conveniently situated 
“banda” or wharf at Sewree, Bombay, 
for the loading of dangerous and other 
categories of petroleum products, and 
similarly in the proximity of Wadi 
Bunder, also in Bomba), there are 
other wharves The actual loading of 
the craft calls for a high degree of 
skill, and even more so, the handling 
and loading of barrels 

Wind and weather permitting, the 
sea voyage on an average takes 12 
days for destinations such as Malvan 
and Vengurla, and sometimes twice 
as long for Malpe, the farthest point 
fed from Bombay Each port has i+s 
own peculiarities and as few have 
well-built jetties, the unloading has 
Its own problems Once unloaded, the 
cargo IS overhauled and either moved 
to a stocking point in the interior or 
housed in the Agent’s or Company’s 
central godown to await final delivery. 

Operation Monsoon Stockinf^ involves 
transport of se\eral thousands of gallons 
of Kerosine — the \\ ell-known brands 
being Rising Sun, Chukker, Swan and 
Victoria Also, large quantities -of petrol, 
High Speed Diesel Oil, Light Diesel Oil, 
Powenne and Lubicants go forward by 
country craft 



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MALARIA-Close-up of a Killer 


O N AUGUST 20, 1897, at Secundera- 
bad, Ronald Ross, a (ortv-\ear 
old Scot sunreon m tin Indian 
Army Medical Service, adjvi'-led his 
microscope and pceied into ii 

Since his thn(\-t iG^htii hirthdav, 
Ross had been piickinc; [x opie s fineftrs, 
peeling and probing liours on end, 
e\er\ dav On this da\ hf loiind what 
he was seeking, and a place in the 
Valhalla ol d»s< m eic is too 

bor (cntiiiKs men had Ixen looking 
c-veiy where and Jtiing cvtrvtlnng to 
lind out tin cause ol malai la— blaming 
the marsh vapours, drinking niaish 
water, and even propitiating deifies 
Ross was the hisi human being to see 
a pigmented malaria paiasitc lioni man 
growing within the stomach wall ol an 
Anopheles moscjuilo 

How did Ross <omt to stisper t tlie 
mejsqiiito t (3 be the c nniiiial that cairud 
inalaiia'* \nothei Scot suige on, Patiic k 
Manson had done a bit ol detection 
helote him and liad sugge steel ilie eon- 
rie Mon While other se lentists lauglied 
and tapped then loreheads densivcK 
at Manson, and gave him the sobiicpiet 
of ‘ mosepiito voting Ross had taken 
him at his word 

VVitli the death-dealing Anopheles 
captive on a shele under the rnieroscopt, 
Ross brought the hunt lor llu can it r 
ol malaria to an e nd At long last the 
enemy had been tracked down, trapped 
— the elusiv'e, insidious tiieinv that had 
since tlie beginning ol human soeittv 
laid waste lar more territories and e {aim- 
ed far more human lives than all the 
Altilas and Gengfiis Khans ol historv 
Even mdav, 'ib years alter Ross’s dis- 
cover , malaria remains one ol the 
world’s greatest killtis At a rough 
reckoning, every year, over 650 million 
people are racked bv its raging fever 
and bone-raitling chills , the casualties, 
in deaths alone, number over 3 million 
Actuarial experts have used their slide 
rules and adding m,*chmes to tot up 
the deaths and economic losses inflicted 
by malaria mdirectlv — colossal is the 
word for the 1 1 

J hiS d'c • / j; 1)1 ,i'ivh 

Muu pi>i 


This IS in<irrcr*a gi im^ picture. But 
though far from being coiVquered, on 
manv a Iront, malai la has been on the 
retreat ‘‘ A/v work'*i Ross onee said, 
** had not been done Jor the sake <»f 
parasttology but in order to find a 
method of ledming the incidence of 
malaria '* Ross did not hope in vaiii 
I he uclimcfuc ol wailare against nios- 
cpiiiocs developed rapidlv on the basis 
ol his diSKAfrv I lie saniiarv victories 
won b\ me 11 like V\' A (iorgas in 
Panama (ie)oj-i4) and bv Sir Malcolm 
Watson in johorc ( i»)-29) show how the 
sting can be taken out oi malaria More 
spcetaculai was die victors m Natal, 
Bia/il In le^o, Hra/ihan doctors looked 
askance and felt a e hill run down 
their Spine'S winii the \ discovered 
Gambiae — owe ol die deadliest ol 
malaria-c arrv mg inoscjuiloe s — in their 
coiintrv Immediate investigation re- 
vealed that these ‘Alrican agents ol 
death” had ^lunk past the* C|uaiantine 
into Brazil as stowaways on French 
commercial planci* Irurn Dakar, West 
Airica Steeps were at once taken to 
prevent luiiher infiltratu'ii But the 
Cambiaf had alicadv invaded their 
hemisphere ' Soon certain areas ol 
Brazil hc'ame hell-holes ol malaria 
For nine years the battle raged Bv 
IC440, the mostjuito-fighie rs ol Biazd, 
aided b\ their ow'ii Gove rnment and 
the Roc kclellei fecundation, had sue - 
e ceded in putting the (wambiae to rout 
c ompirte Iv 

lodav we knewv a whole lot about 
mosquitoes and malaria We have at 
our disposal potent anti-malanal drugs 
that afford us complete irnmunitv from 
the disease We have powerful cnemi- 
c a Is and msec tie ides tliatcan ram death 
c n the mosepatoes W^hat’s more — 
because Anopheles is no respecter of 
national sovereignties — the war against 
u IS being c arned on regardless of 
frontiers, with the World Health Organi- 
sation leading the attack Now indeed 
we can look forward to a future when 
malaria, if not wholl\ eradicated, will 
become a minor disease 

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VOLUME 64 


MARCH 1954 


Readei^Digest 

An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent bool{let form 


A true and simple love story, 
typifying the glory and wonder of human devotion 

Only a Question of Time 

By Robert Littell 


AST SUMMER in Salzbufg I came 
face to face with one of those 
personal tragedies that are war’s 
grim aftermath — a tragedy with the 
redeeming power of human faith. I 
met there a young mother with two 
small sons and a husband who had 
gone to war and had not returned 

She was Dutch, she told me, 
“bui my husband is Austrian We 
must stay and wait for him here, 
because this is his country, and 
where he will come back.” 

“He is in Russia,” said one of the 
boys 

“In a prisoner-of-war camp,” said 
the other. 

And how long had she been 
waiting^ 

“Nine years. . . .” 

I HAD heard about her the year 
before. And still she was waiting — 


waiting in the deserts of the heart 
where time stands stdl 

She was christened Johanna Phil- 
lippine Mane Theodora, but her 
friends call her Philine. One winter, 
while ski-mg in Austria, she met 
Kurt Eggenberger. They fell in love 
and were married in 1937 — just be- 
fore Hitler swallowed Austria. She 
was then 29 Kurt was a builder’s 
foreman who had also been a 
mountain guide and ski instructor. 
He was a man of sensitive firmness 
and warmhearted reserve, with a 
web of fine wrinkles round his eyes 
from looking at mountain skies and 
snows. Philine, then as now, was 
strong and slender. She has a gener- 
ous mouth, short blonde wavy hair, 
and deep blue eyes. 

The outbreak of war found them 
in Berlin, where Kurt, working 
from dawn to midnight, took his 



meineer’s degree in a year and a 
half instead of the usual four When 
the Nazis invaded Russia he was 
drafted into Hitler’s gigantic con- 
struction enterprise, the Otgariim- 
tton Todt Eventuallv he reached 
the rank of ma]or On the Na/i 
flood-tide he went deep into Russia, 
With Its ebb he floated back to 
Rumania, Hungary, Austria, ^'ugo- 
slavia He wa« twice decorated for 
valour under fire 
Philine, who had moved from 
Berlin to Austria, lived for their boy 
Rolf — who is now almost 12 — and 
for Kurt’s rare, short leaves Late 
in 1944 Kurt suddenlv appeared and 
was as suddenly gone He wrote 
that he was in the midst of the fight- 
ing round Budapest, but hoped to 
be home for Christmas So on 
Christmas Eve she decorated a tree, 
banked it with presents and lit the 
candles For Rolf there was his first 
pair of skis — he was nearly three, 
quite old enough to begin learning 
Philine waited, and waited, and the 
little boy went to sleep on the floor 
in the midst of all the beautiful 
things When Kurt did not come, 
she put the child to bed and then, 
Philine says, she ‘‘had a wonderful 
Christmas all alone with my hus- 
band whereyer he was that night ” 
After Christmas there came a 
letter, a few days later, another 
Then a fortnight went by — nothing 
The weeks became months — months 
of silence vintil it seemed that some- 
thing in the world must break 
Was he aliyc^ If so, where Over 


and over she saw him clearly pic- 
tured, as in a dreadful waking night- 
mare, with his hands tied behind his 
back, his bod) straining forward in 
an agony to be free 

To erase this picture, she would 
remember pleasanter ones The 
time, foi instance, when Kurt came 
home unexpectedly on the eve of 
her birthday, in late Septembei. 
N(\t morning Kurt had got up at 
five, and made the rounds of his 
farmer friends in the neighbour- 
hood, begging all the flowers which 
the frost had spared He brought 
them home in armfuls piled high 
as hay, so that when she woke 
flowers filled the rtxim, and were 
heaped over chairs and tables and 
window sills 

Her mind went back to their first 
happy weeks together in a little 
loom in the mountains It was a 
humble room with brown paper on 
the floor instead of carpets, but a 
room gay with their carefree love. 

Over the void of time and space 
between herself and Kurt she flung 
a gossamer bridge, daily woven 
stronger of such memories of their 
Icjve and life together 

In May of 1945 war’s end brought 
hope, but no news Three months 
later there was some joy for Philine, 
and distraction too a second son, 
Pan, was born She had no doctor, 
only a midwife, and next day she 
steeled herself to be up and about 
her business of helping the refugees 
now streaming from the East. Life 
was not easy The allowance from 





Kurt’s pay had stopped, and she 
had to sell some or her jewellery 
and trinkets. 

The grey days came again, and 
the first flurries, and then the deep, 
sparkling snows. Suddenly it was 
New Year He had been gone over 
a year She remembered their first 
New Year’s Eve. As the village 
church bells struck 12, in a cere- 
mony all his own Kurt had swept 
her up in his arms and held her 
high as if she were an offering be- 
fore an altar. “In my hands I bear 
you high into the New Year,” he 
had said, smiling 

“And even when wc were 
parted,” says Philine, “I could still 
feel his strength lifting me ” 

But there were silent, relentlessly 
empty years. Until one day there 
came an official-looking card on 
which was written “Dearest — 
since December 28, 1944, I have 
been a prisoner of war in Russia, 
and am in good health and un- 
wounded You need not worry any 
more . ” The card was dated 
July 25, 1945, almost a year earlier. 

A few months later there came 
another card, and then a third 
“. . things will go well with us 
again some day.” 

Over the next seven years Philine 
^was sustained by a thin trickle of 
such messages from him. Once she 
had no news for ten months. He 
could never tell her v here he was or 
what be was doing. 

• His words, from behind what 
height of barbed wire, from what 


depth of loneliness, dirt and hunger 
she dared not imagine, built ever 
stronger the bridge of their love. 
It was not in him to complain After 
four years of captivity he could still 
cry out, “Dear one, what great gifts 
of happiness has life brought to 
us ^ Each day I hold your hands 
in mine ” 

One day in 1947 Philine heard a 
radio announcement that several 
thousand Austrian prisoners were to 
be released by the Russians, in 39 
convoys Surely Kurt would be 
among them * She mended her best 
dress, washed the windows and the 
glasses until they sparkled 

But his name wasn’t on the first 
list Or the second For 39 days she 
held her breath each time she read 
the lists Until one day she read the 
chilling words “The operation for 
the return of Austrian prisoners of 
war has been concluded ” 

For the first time since he had 
left, she packed Kurt’s clothes away 
in moth-balls She began to hear 
from some of the released prisoners 
who had seen Kurt in Russia. Most 
of their letters were reassuring but 
vague — like faded snapshots “Your 
husband is in good health,” repeat- 
ed a friendly chorus “He will 
soon be out It is only a question 
of time.” 

These letters ceased, and for a 
long time there were none from 
Kurt himself Then one day came 
a brief card from him with a new 
location number — 61 18-P. When she 
asked the help of the Austrian Red 



Cross in locating him^ an official 
who had learned many dismal sC' 
crcts about which he could do noth- 
ing said gently, “It’s rather far 
away,” and put his finger on a map 
at Sverdlovsk, in Siberia. 

Siberia. . . It was from there, 
she thinks, that she received the 
only discouraged words Kurt ever 
wrote her “Without you my heart 
would cease beating in order to have 
rest,” 

Four years ago Philine and the 
two boys moved to Salzburg She 
took some tiny rooms under the 
caves of a house in the suburbs. 
Work was hard to find, but she 
made a little money doing transla- 
tions. Much against her will, she 
sold some of Kurt’s things. “The 
hardest was selling his ski trousers,” 
she says “I’d so often seen them 
from behind — with him in them.” 

Her friends and family in Hol- 
land put pressure on her to “stop 
waiung for that man and come 
home.” But her faith, her certainty 
that he would return, grew stronger 
through the years of separation 
“Though parted,” she insists, “we 
came closer. Other women whose 
husbands were prisoners speak of 
the ‘lost years, the years we might 
have had together.’ Kurt and I had 
those nine years together.” 

Nine years is more than 3,000 
days, 3,000 nights. Yet when neigh- 
bours asked when Kurt would 
come, Philine always answered con- 
fidently, “Soon, now. It’s only a 
question ot time ” 


Only a question of time — and 
love, and infinite faith, and the all- 
conquering courage of the human 
spirit 

Then, last October 13, the radio 
announced that 609 Austrian pris- 
oners would cross the border the 
next day But no names were given 
out* In Philine’s heart the hours 
ticked slower than years, while an- 
other sun rose and set, and yet an- 
other. Then there were footsteps on 
the stairs, but not his. 

A telegram It was from Vienna 

ARRIVED SAFE AND SOUND — PLEASE 
DO NOT COME TO MEET ME AT THE 
STATION — KURT 

Soon the whole neighbourhood 
had heard, and flowers and mes- 
sages began to pour in 

Philine could not bear waiting at 
the window. A neighbour on the 
floor below stood watch for her. 
When a little bell rang, Phihnc ran 
out on to the balcony. There, 
striding along the alley below, was 
Kurt He was joyously carrying 
Dan in his arms — Dan, the son he 
had never seen. 

I FIRST saw Kurt Eggenbcrger ten 
days after his return. He talked of 
his captivity simply, without dra- 
matics, holding Philine’s hands in 
his “I still don’t feel close to real 
life,” he said, looking round the 
little low-ceilmgcd room. “You 
can’t emerge all at once from nine 
years in the grave.” 

The sight of the most ordinary, 
things was for him like being re- 



omy A QUESTION OF TIME 


^igS4 

born. “It makes me happy/* he said, 
“)ust to have a bath once more, to 
turn taps, to open a door with a 
door handle, to sit in a chair.’* 

Nine years of longing and hunger; 
of filth and lice and cold; of long, 
senseless |ourneys in cattle-trucks 
from dismal camp to stinking gaol 
to yet another dismal camp; of toil, 
toil so far north that the soil chipped 
like glass under the pick. 

Yet back from this torment Kurt 
came with a clear eye, level voice, 
steady hand. How did he keep from 
going mad? How did this intelli- 
gent, sensitive, affectionate human 
being preserve his humanity ? 

The answer lay partly in granite 
will power Whenever he had dys- 
entery, for example, he cured him- 
self by eating nothmg at all for five 
or six days The answer lay also in 
the intensity of his imagination. He 
kept thinking “What would my 
Wife say if she could sec me now?” 
So he kept up his appearance as best 
he could, and thus a measure of 
self-respect. He made a point of shav^ 
mg daily, no matter how dull the 
razor blade, though the beards of 
other prisoners flourished abouthim. 


Just as with Philine, his greatest 
source of strength was his memory 
of happy days. “I would he on my 
bunk, close my eyes, and look with 
inner eyes on all the things that 
filled our lives together.” 

Kurt told of his journey back 
from Russia towards home and free- 
dom. “My heart was tempted to be 
happy, but my brain said, with the 
song of the rails beneath us, ‘Wait- 
a-little, wait-a-little, wait * ” When 
the train rolled into Poland, the 
prisoners caught their first glimpse 
of Western European houses, of 
real villages, of oak and maple trees. 
“More and more pieces of home 
came by to greet us,” says Kurt. 

As Kurt stepped off the train in 
Austria, his homeland, he had noth- 
ing on him to show who he had 
been He was only a name on a list 
which a Russian official checked 
over. But his brain at last let his 
heart rejoice when he sav/ his name 
written large on a piece of card- 
board being waved by his friends 
from Vienna. 

At our last meeting Phihne said, 
“Kurt’s hands will again lift me into 
a New Year — and a new home.” 


Three Times and In 

J. PLANE coming in for a landing at a small airstrip thumped the run- 
way, bounced high into the air, smacked the airstrip again and bounded 
a second time. After a third bounce, it finally stayed down. Having 
taxied over to the hangar, the pilot radioed the control tower for the 
official time of his landing, so that he could enter it in his log. 

A quiet voice flashed back, “Which one, sir?**— rAe Saturday Evening Post 



This woman readily recognizes — 


Tke Ylatural 
Superioritif 
of Wen 


Bv Jean Pearson 


1 1 "OMEN should remember they’re 
V ' merely ribs, not roosters Men 
should rule the roost. 

The natural superiority of men is 
easily recognized by every woman 
who has spent the best years of her 
life chasing, snaring, trapping and 
guarding one of these prize speci- 
mens of humanity She can see 
It in a thousand ways (and if she 
can’t, he’ll cheerfully point them 
out) 

Men arc tougher They can over- 
come incredible weariness to play 
golf or go fishing or install a new 
carburettor. 

Men are braver They do not 
wince when their women empty 
mouse-traps or spray against cock- 
roaches They do not fear losing an 
ear to a fish hook, getting shot while 
they are out rabbiting or getting hit 
on the head by a golf ball. 


Men are more frugal. They save 
money by wearing the same hat for 
ten years, by not squandering on 
insurance and by not stamping 
Christmas cards. 

Men are more objective They 
can see your faults better than you 
can 

Men are more careful of their 
health They don’t risk respiratory 
diseases by cleaning out dusty attics 
or court colds by washing cement 
floors in damp basements When 
they have a cold they go to bed and 
never risk a chill by getting up for 
meals And when they’re m a hos- 
pital they don’t risk unattended 
death but try to see that a nurse is 
always nearby 

Men are more ingenious. They 
think of dozens of reasons why the 
carpets should not be beaten, why 
washing the car hurts the finish and 
how the lawn is improved by not 
mowing It 

Men are more honest When 
asked to give their honest opinion 
about a new hat they give it. They 
also generously give it when not 
asked. 

Men have sharper senses They 
can spot a trim ankle at loo yards 

Men are cleverer They know 
how to delegate authority. They let 
women decide what should be on 
the grocer’s list, how the meals 
should be cooked, how the house 
should be cleaned, how the children 
should be disciplined — and then 
let them do it. 


Condensed from The Detroit Free Press 



Norman Vincent Pcalc shows people 
how to have faith 

Pastor of 

Troubled Souls 

By Lois Mattox Miller & James Monahan 

|n the Sunday morning when “What things soever ye desire, 
the new pastor appeared at when ye pray believe that ye receive 
Marble Collegiate Church in New them, and ye shall have them.’* 
York fewer than 300 people were Time-honoured words, heard a 
seated in the pews Many of them thousand times before; yet this 
had come with heavy hearts and young man said them differently, 
troubled minds, for this was Octo- Parishioners left the church that 
her in the depression year of 1932 morning feeling uplifted, strength- 
In the pulpit they saw a pleasant, cned, ready to tackle their problems 
lound-faced man with thinning anew 

brown hair and keen blue eyes, per- The new pastor was Norman 
haps a trifle young to be pastor of Vincent Peale Under his ministry 
the oldest Protestant congregation Marble Collegiate Church has 
in America Except for his robes he grown from a few hundred mem- 
didn’t look much like a clergyman bers to more than 4,000 Twice each 
— more like one of the businessmen Sunday throngs, swollen by out-of- 
in the congregation towners, fill the big church, and the 

His sermon was unrhctorical. He overflow is seated in two chapels 
spoke quietly, almost conversation- that are linked to the pulpit by tele- 
ally He reminded his listeners of a vision circuit Men outnumber 
faith they had quite forgotten — a women in the flock; young people 
faith that puts power in the soul, outnumber the old. 
sweeps away fear and self-doubt, Dr. Pcale’s influence extends far 
enables the believer to triumph beyond the church membership, 
over any odds He spoke of prayer Through his books, magazine arti- 
power, and of Christ’s promise . cles, syndicated newspaper column, 

Condensed from Chrutian Ferald 





THE READERS DIGEST’ 


Mafch * 


» 

platform lectures, and radio and 
television programmes, he has 
changed millions of lives. Almost 
200,000 people get his sermons regu- 
larly by post. The rcligious-psychia- 
tric clinic which he founded has 
given a new direction to the mental- 
health movement His most devoted 
admirers, all proud to proclaim how 
he transformed their lives, include 
businessmen, scientists, soldiers, 
statesmen 

A prominent physician explains 
the success this way. “Norman 
Peale simply preaches an old truth 
— that faith and prayer can trans- 
form our daily lives People try it, 
and are amazed to hnd that it 
really works ” 

Dr. Peale says “The failure of 
die Church has often been that it 
tells people to pray and have faith, 
but doesn’t tell them how The 
really important thing is howy 

By practising what he preaches, 
Norman Peale bears his stupendous 
work load with an ease and calm- 
ness that leave plenty of time to 
spend with his wife and three chil- 
dren, relax with friends or run a 
tractor on his loo-acrc farm north of 
New York City. 

The New York that Norman 
Peale found in October 1932 was a 
:hallengc to his faith in Christian 
principles as a dynamic force in life 
Defeated by the depression, people 
were afraid to tackle the rebuilding 
of their shattered lives. Many had 
lost jobs, savings, businesses. Fear 
bad created in their minds such 


a pattern of negative thinking that 
purposeful, constructive action had 
become next to impossible. 

Norman Peale recognized the 
trouble. “Change your thinking,” 
he urged “Your mind gives back 
to you only what you put into 
It. Shift from negative to positive 
thoughts ” 

Scientifically, this was sound ad- 
vice But how does the average 
man achieve this miracle? His own 
gloomy, fear-ridden mind is an un- 
likely source of happy affirmations. 
Dr Peale had a ready answer 

“Turn to your Bible It is the in- 
comparable source of powerful, up- 
lifting thoughts And these inspired 
words apply directly to you. Fill 
your mind with them Counter 
every negative thought with a glow- 
ing verse Let these verses seep into 
your unconscious Soon your mind 
will give them back to you auto- 
matically There’ll be no room for 
thoughts of defeat and failure.” 

To prove his point he prepared a 
booklet containing some of his own 
favourite texts I can do all things 
through Christ which strengthencth 
me (Philippians 4* 13), The things 
which are impossible with men are 
possible with God (Luke 18 27), 
God hath not given us the spirit of 
fear, but of power, and of love, and 
of a sound mind (II Timothy i : 7). 

“This IS amazing,” one man 
wrote Norman Peale. “I’ve found 
that these texts are not mere words. 
They’re power — distilled power.” 

Some psychiatrists bclic\c that 



PASTOR OF TROUBLED SOULS 


^954 

Norman Pcalc’s greatest work has 
been accomplished in the quiet of 
his church study, where more and 
more people went seeking help with 
personal problems — marital trou- 
bles, emotional conflicts, jangled 
nerves. Often he found it possible 
to “talk things out” to a happy solu- 
tion. Yet he was saddened by the 
number of cases of anxiety and 
mental depression that failed to 
respond to counsel and prayer 

Dr Peale knew he was up against 
problems beyond him He felt he 
must enlist the aid of a top psychia- 
trist who was also a devout Chns- 
tian. A few weeks later he met the 
man he was looking for — Dr. 
Smiley Blanton, then assistant pro- 
fessor of psychiatry at Cornell Uni- 
versity Medical Schools. 

“We found that we shared a 
dream,” Dr Peale recalls, “that 
psychiatry and religion, working to- 
gether, might accomplish more to- 
gether than either could alone.” 

The Marble Collegiate Church 
Clinic began modestly. Smiley Blan- 
ton simply took a seat in Dr. Peale’s 
study ana they received visitors to- 
gether. They listened and ques- 
tioned. Later they discussed each 
case, decided whether the individ- 
ual needed religious guidance, fur- 
ther psychiatric treatment, or both. 

Soon Dr. Blanton had to bring 
in more psychiatrists to help People 
who otherwise might have shied 
away from psychiatry gratefully 
accepted it in die warm, friendly 
atmosphere of the church. Many 


9 

learned for the first time about their 
unconscious mind. They were sur- 
prised to find that their fears, anxi- 
ety or depression came not from the 
familiar levels of consciousness but 
out of the deeper recesses of the 
mind where repressed and forgotten 
hatred can linger very much alive, 

“For all these unhappy people,” 
says Dr Peale, “the first step is to 
exorcise the devils of submerged 
emotional conflict That is the psy- 
chiatrist’s job. Only then can reli- 
gious guidance stimulate the flow of 
healing faith in the ultimate power 
and rightness of God.” 

Psychiatry plus religion produced 
results that amazed the doctors. 
Frequently cases that would have 
required many months or even years 
of psychiatry alone were cleared up 
in a short time 

Many doctors had observed that 
people with deep religious faith sel- 
dom have “nervous breakdowns.” 
The celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Carl 
Jung declares that among his thou- 
sands of patients “none has been 
really healed who did not regain his 
religious outlook.” But the wonder- 
ful possibilities of a working ar- 
rangement between religion and 
psychiatry were not demonstrated 
until Norman Vincent Peale brought 
Smiley Blanton into the sanctuary. 

In 1953 the clinic, now grown to 
a huge activity commanding the 
services of seven additional psychia- 
trists, five clinical psychologists and 
four minister-counsellors, was in- 
corporated into the American 



THE READER S DIGEST 


Foundation for Religion and Psy- 
chiatry. Besides treating patients, 
the foundation trains ministers, 
seminarians and religious workers 
in the important work of collaborat- 
ing with psychiatrists Soon, it is 
hoped, there will be church clinics 


similar to Dr. Peale’s in many cities. 

“Millions of people,” says Dr 
Peale, “can be helped simply by 
turning wholeheartedly to God If 
others need psychiatric help, it is 
the Church's duty to see that they 
receive it “ 




Father Knows Best 

No AMOUNT of coaxing could persuade their i6-month-old son to take 
his medicine in any shape, form or fashion In utter disgust Mother gave 
up and left the room When Mother came back, she stared in amazement, 
for there stood her son gleefully opening his mouth for it 

Her husband had solved the problem by mixing the medicine with 
orange juice, putting it into a water pistol and shooting it into him ^ 

-Atlanta Journal and ( on’ititution Magazine 

Each time I put our two-year-old on the closed front porch to play, he 
objected violently when I locked his gate to make sure he stayed there 
Then one day my husband put the youngster in his “playroom” and 
locked the gate, and for once he didn't scream, but played happily by 
himself 

My husband’s explanalion was simple “I just told him I was locking 
the gate,” he said, “so that you couldn't get in and bother him “ 

--(Contributed b\ 1 0 0 

JoF Lauru, Jr , the actor, tells about a friend of his who made the mis- 
take of leaving her baby daughter in her husband’s care while she closeted 
herself in the library to pay bills He buried himself behind his newspaper 
and forgot about the baby until he heard a senes of thumps, followed by 
a horrendous wail Clearly, baby had fallen down the stairs 

“Martha,” called the father excitedly “Come quick ' Our little girl just 
took her first 24 steps’” Week 


The FoftiH Bridge has a permanent ^taff of painters who spend the 
whole of their Ir'cs painting the bridge They start at one end and do not 
stop until they reach the other, then they start all over again Fifty tons 
of iron paint and three years arc needed to cover the structure from end 
to end No ordinary painter can be a Forth Bridge painter, he must come 
to the Bridge as a boy and be reared on its giddy heights When these 
men die their sons step in to take their places. 



Even to an experienced observer, the 
world of the wild is full of mystery 



Nature’s 

Guarded Secrets 


By Archibald Rutledge 

F or more than 50 years I have 
roamed the wild woods, the 
deep river-swamps, the lonely sea- 
beaches, trying to understand some- 
thing of nature’s ways and the ways 
of her wild children. I am con- 
stantly being surprised 
On my Carolina plantation, two 
miles from the rver, there was a 
dcc;p lake, some 12 acres in area 
About six years ago, tor no appar- 
ent reason, the lake went totally 


dry, and bushes, grasses and wild- 
flowers grew where the water had 
been Then a year ago, during a \ 
rainy spell, the lake suddenly and ' 
mysteriously filled up again. 

Even more mysteriously, within 
a few days there appeared in the 
lake big bass, water moccasins, pa- 
triarch bullfrogs, grim alligators — 
all the normal inhabitants of a large, 
permanent body of fresh water in 
that part of the world Where had 
they been for five years ^ How did 
they find their way home so quickly ? 
Bv what secret radio of the wilds 
had they been informed that their 
lake was once more brimming with 
water ^ Their sudden return filled 
me with wonder 

When I was ten years old, we 
had a summer home in the moun- 
tains One July day 1 Vent berry- 
picking with two mountain children 
and their babv brother, then about 
nine months old We put the baby 
down where the grass was short. We 
planned to stay within sight, so we 
thought all would be well 

After a while I went back and 
peeered over the blackberry canes at 
him He was petting something and 
talking to it — “Da, da, da . .” 

A huge rattlesnake lay across the 
baby's legs’ 

I retreated and called my com- 
panions We decided the only thing 
to do was to do nothing Even at our 
ages we realized that to disturb or 
alarm the rattler might easily be 

n 


Condensed from The American Weekly 


t2 


THE READERS DIGEST 


fatal. Finally, after what seemed 
ages, the snake slithered away. 

Any mature person would have 
shrunk with horror at sight of that 
evil, flattened face. What was there 
in the baby’s dulcet tones, in the 
caressing touch of those elfin hands, 
to win that implacable heart ? And 
was there not wonder, too, in the 
child’s having no instinctive fear 


Well do I remember, too — and 
wonder at — the genius of Gypsy, a 
Httle thoroughbred mare I used to 
ride after cattle. She and I were 
familiar with a territory extending 
for several miles Beyond these 
limits lay the “backwoods” — a wild 
sea of pines into which we rarely 
ventured. 

One day we were after two young 
cows that had wandered with their 
first calves into the solitary green- 
woods. There had been a flood in 
the nver, and all the creeks, estua- 
ries and backwaters of the woods 
were bnmifling with the flood 
water. Thus cut off, the cattle 
might stray so far I would never see 
them again. 

Gypsy and I, following fresh 
cattle tracks, crossed a flooded creek 
some five miles from home. Two 
hours later, we came upon the cattle 
we had been following A glance 


showed me they were not mine. 
Immediately I turned my horse 
homewards But we were in 
strange, morass-likc woods, and a 
sleety November ram was falling. 
Night came quickly. Under me, 
Gypsy shivered 

“Little girl,” I said, “I haven’t the 
least idea where we are. See if you 
can take us home ” 

I dropped the reins She started 
off in a direction I would never have 
taken — ^but I let her have her way. 

On we went through darkness 
and sleet Far off I heard the drum- 
ming thunder of waters Soon 
Gypsy was wading deep in the 
flocxl, the cold tide about my waist. 
Now she was swimming valiantly, 
nosing her way among the trunks 
of the drowned swamp trees 

At last Gypsy’s feet touched bot- 
tom. She gave a happy little neigh 
and waded out confidently. In five 
minutes more she had struck a road 
that even in the dark I recognized 
In a blinding storm — and without 
help from me — she had brought me 
straight home. 

Familiarity with nature never 
breeds contempt. The more a man 
learns, the more he expects sur- 
prises, and the more he becomes 
aware of the inscrutable. 


GUES'»' once asked Mrs. Thomas Fcndall, a grande dame of Leesburg, 
Virginia, why she had a portrait of George Washington hanging behind 
a door. “But, my dear,” said Mrs Fendall gently, “he was not a member 
of the family. — Xhe Saturday Evening Po$t 



Murder 
Most Foul 


In Basutoland 


By John Gunther 



I don’t think Tve ever been 
in a place more beautiful 
than Basutoland The first 
feeling you get is of height and 
sparkle. In the sharp, vibrating sun- 
shine the lopsided mountains look 
painted against the sky; the coun- 
tryside seems to he on a slant to- 
wards the lofty, burning sun. 

Basutoland is a British colony 
completely surrounded by the 
Union of South Africa It covers an 
area approximately the size of Bel- 
gium and the population is about 
600,000, of whom 2,000 are white. 
There are no railways and prac- 
tically no roads; three-quarters of 
the country can be reached only on 
horseback. 

You get to Maseru, the capital 
, village, by road fro/n Bloemfontein, 
caputal of the Orange Free State, 
t one of the four provinces of the 
Union of South Africa. You can 
drive the 80 miles in about two 


hours. Maseru has something of the 
atmosphere of an early American 
frontier town Two or three trading 
companies have shops there, but it 
IS without cinema or newspaper 
and It was the only British town I 
saw in Africa without a Barclay’s 
Bank. 

The physical beauty of the land- 
scape makes Basutoland seem an 
incongruous setting for murder Yet 
this remote little state has long been 
addicted to killings of the most ap- 
palling nature 

They take the form of “medi- 
cine” murder a person is killed so 
that his remains may be utilized as 
a kind of sorcerer’s charm. Bits of 
flesh arc severed from the victim 
while he is still alive. The flesh is 
mixed with blood, fat and herbs 
and pounded into a paste which is 
then cooked to the proper consist- 
ency. This gruesome “medicine” is 
supposed to give magical powers to 



fHE READER'S DIGEST 


^4 

the person using it; he smears it on 
his body, or sometimes eats it. It is 
prescribed to achieve the most pro- 
saic ends : a man who wants to get 
more land, or rise to a better politi- 
cal appointment, or find his son a 
job, may arrange the murder of an 
innocent person to acquire the bale- 
ful mixture that will ensure the 
granting of his wish. 

British authorities have done their 
best to check the butchery, with 
httlc success In an effort to cope 
with the forces of Basuto supersti- 
tion, the Government appointed a 
Cambridge anthropologist, G I 
}ones, to make a survey Jones’s re- 
port makes grim reading.* Here is 
one of his case histones 

On a Saturday evening in January 
1948, Mochescla Khoto sat drinking 
beer with other guests at a wedding 
feast when the chicftaincss of the dis- 
trict arrived with a number of her 
men She told them “I want you to 
kill Mochesela for me, because I want 
to make a medicine which I will use in 
getting my son an appointment ” The 
men seized Mochesela and marched 
him off to a satisfactory spot, where 
they stripped him and held him naked 
on the ground By the light of an oil 
lamp they cut circular pieces of skin 
from parts of his body with a knife 
As they were cut, the pieces were laid 
on a white cloth in front of Mosala, 
the native doctor who was going to 
make the medicine. One of the men 
held a can to collect the blood from 

* BAuutoland Medtctnt Murder A Report on 
tju Recent ^tkreak of Murders tn Basutoland 
(Liondon, 1951) I have drawn on this document 
for many of die details that follow 


the wounds Then another man took 
the knife and with it removed the 
entire face of Mochesela. Mochesela 
died while his throat was being cut. 
The chicftainess stood by watching 
Mochesela’s body was thrown over a 
low cliff near the village 

In this case the murderers were 
caught and brought to trial The 
chieftainess and her leading ac- 
complice were hanged Other mem 
bers of the gang got sentences of 
seven and 15 years 

The Jones report contains an 
analysis of 93 murders, almost all 
conform to a basic pattern First, 
the victim is usually somebody in- 
conspicuous. A chief never murders 
another chief If he needs medicine 
with which to oppose a rival, it is 
taken from someone who has noth- 
ing to do with the dispute Second, 
the victim is often a relative or close 
associate of the murderer. Appar- 
ently the medicine’s power is aug- 
mented if It comes from a kinsman. 

Third, the murder is carefully 
planned, never accidental, and is 
almost always committed by a num- 
ber of persons working together. 
Fourth, flesh must be cut off the 
victim while he or she is still alive 
Fifth, the victim’s body is usually 
placed where it is certain to be 
found. 

In Case No. 47 of the Jones re- 
port the victim was “ironed” with 
hot stones before portions of his 
body were excised. In Case No. 16 
the flesh had to come from “a re- 
cently confined woman.” In another 



MOST ^ ^ 


a young woman was murdered by 
her father-in-law, who needed flesh 
particularly from her eyebrows. In 
another, m which “deceased and 
accused were related and on good 
terms,” the victim was killed by 
pouring boiling water down her 
throat and making a hole in the top 
of her head 

The Basuto murders cannot be 
dismissed merely as gruesome an- 
thropological curiosities. From re- 
corded cases this butchery seems on 
the increase, and has become in- 
volved in the political life of Basuto- 
land. 

The ruling class in Basutoland 
derives from a great chiet named 
Moshesh, who created the Basuto 
nation after the Zulu Wars and 
who ruled it for almost 50 years, 
until his death in 1870. His de- 
scendants, 1,330 in all, call them- 
selves the Sons of Moshesh 

It IS they, in their fierce feuding, 
who have produced most of the re- 
cent murders. There were 14 kill- 
ings reported in 1952, and they are 
still occurring at an ugly rate. 

A forbidding lady named ’Mant- 
sebo Seeiso has been Paramount 
Chieftainess of the country since 
1940 Jealous chiefs felt she had no 
legitimate claim to the title, but she 
will hold It now until her stepson, 
16, comes of age The British prob- 
ably would have preferred a male 
ruler to the complicated, unstable 
regency under a woman, but it is 
colonial policy to let Africans settle 
their own dynastic affairs. 


*Mantsebo is not spoken of with 
much affection in Basutoland, but I 
had the feeling that she is respected 
as well as feared. She has a small 
farm near Maseru, works hard on 
It, and IS not eager to give up her 
salary as Chieftainess, which is 
j[iy 6 oo per year. 

My wife and I met this extraor- 
dinary woman We were in Maseru 
on June 2, 1953, which was Corona- 
tion Day in England, and the British 
Resident Commissioner invited us 
to the mass meeting which was held 
to celebrate the event. Tribesmen 
gathered on the parade ground in 
bright blankets while the chief dig- 
nitaries of the state, some of them 
in formal day dress with grey top- 
pers, assembled on a covered dais. 

’Mantsebo arrived, 20 minutes 
late, in a bright-green American 
car. She took her place, and one of 
her courtiers read out a speech that 
had been prepared for her. 

Eventually the meeting broke up, 
and we went to the Residency for a 
sherry party on the lawn. We were 
duly presented to ’Mantsebo, who 
spoke to us through an interpreter. 
People came and went, she stood 
rigidly m the reception line, her 
head bobbing She acknowledged 
greetings without smiling. 

’Mantsebo, one should point out 
carefully, has never been accused of 
any crime herself. And this dumpy^ 
formidable woman is still very 
much the ruler of Basutoland. But 
not even the witch doctors know 
what may happen next. 




FUN and GAINS wU^ Stamps 

By Marion Hargrove 

S OME MONTHS AGO an advertising no space had been provided in his 
executive got talking at lunch album; in some cases he could not 
about his insomnia Every day was even decide what country a stamp 
so hectic, he said, that when he got came from. This time he came 
to bed at night, he found it impos- away with a small booklet on stamp 
sible to unwind identification and a copy of Stanley 

His friend had a suggestion Gibbons Postage Stamp Catalogue, 
“Start playing with postage stamps. The next day, a httle red-eyed, 
Best way in the world to relax ” he came in again. Evidently he had 
Feeling that he had nothing to acquired a good deal of philatehc 
lose, the advertising man dropped knowledge and confidence over- 
in at a shop, whose stamp ad- night. His purchase this time con- 
vcrtisements he had seen in a sistcd of a Japanese reading glass, a 
newspaper. He came away with a small perforation gauge and a 
heavy bundle which the salesman watermark detector 
assured him would take care of his His insomnia is completely gone 
insomnia for a year a huge album now He relaxes with his stamps for 
{1,250 pages . . . spaces for over hours every night — or until his wife 
55,000 stamps from all countries of screams downstairs at him — then 
the world), a pair of tweezers, a goes to bed and sleeps like a log. 
supply of gummed stickers called Figures on the number of stamp 
“stamp hinges” and an assortment collectors at large in the world 
of 10,000 postage stamps v/ould be impossible to obtain. It is 

Three days later he turned up at generally estimated, though, that in 
die shop again. He was having diffi- America at least one person in 15 is 
culty, he reported, in differentiating a collector, and in Europe at least 
between some of the stamps; there one person in 20 is not. 
were numerous stamps for which Stamp-collecting in Britain has a 

Condensed from Harper's Magattne 



long history. The Royal Collections, 
which are priceless, have given 
pleasure and relaxation to busy 
monarchs and the yearly turnover 
of the stamp dealers is very big. 

In the United States the hobby 
has grown tremendously in the past 
20 years, largely because of men like 
Franklin Roosevelt, who was an 
ardent collector. Until Roosevelt, 
the average American stamp col- 
lector kept discreetly quiet about 
his hobby, assuming that his neigh- 
bour would regard it as rather 
infantile Roosevelt’s unashamed 
addiction not only attracted millions 
of people into the hobby, it also 
made the thing respectable 

No one has succeeded in explain- 
ing the fascination of stamp collect- 
ing It gets you first, apparently, as 
an idle diversion like a jigsaw 
puzzle • you pick up a piece, work 
out where it goes, fit it m and reach 
for another Gradually you lose 
track of the time and of the cares 
that infest the day. 

This mechanical preoccupation is 
soon displaced by a preoccupation 
with the stamps themselves — the dif- 
ferent sizes, shapes, colours, faces, 
languages, uses— and a desire to 
find out something about them. 
The moment the beginner reaches 
for a refcience book (to find out, 
for example, where Ingermanland 
is, or why a Haitian stamp should 
commemorate Alexandre Dumas 
the elder) is the moment at which 
his soul is no longer his own. 

Even in the uses to which stamps 


The Royal Philatelic Society, 
founded in 1869, is the oldest phila- 
telic organization in existence, and 
IS strictly confined to amateur col- 
lectors Meetings are held once a 
fortnight, a monthly journal, The 
London Phtlatehst, is circulated free 
to all members, and there is a refer- 
ence library of 9,000-10,000 books 
at the Society’s headquarters at 41 
Devonshire Place, W i 
The British Philatelic Associa- 
tion, 3 Berners Street, London, 

W I, extends its membership to 
both amateurs and professionals 
It runs lectures and meetings and 
issues the journal Philately 

Both Societies have an Expert 
Committee which will examine 
stamps sent in by members, and 
issue Ccrtihcates of Genuineness 
when applicable 

arc put there is wild variety. Be- 
sides the regular and commemora- 
tive issues, air mail, special delivery, 
postage due, and such, there arc 
stamps for sending letters by zep- 
pelin or pneumatic post, for collect- 
ing special taxes or money for 
charity, and in one instance (the 
1855 “Too Late” issue of the colony 
of Victoria) for getting a letter sent 
out after the regular mails had 
closed. In Czechoslovakia there used 
to be a stamp ensuring that the 
postman would give the letter only 
to the addressee. 

The amount of knowledge to be 
picked up in looking at stamps is 
enormous, and the curiosity it can 
arouse is infinite. A quick glance 
through an album can turn up pic- 
tures of Pasteur, Sarah Bernhardt, 



in okapi, Kaffir huts, Robert Louis 
Stevenson’s bungalow in Samoa 
and a World War II invasion. 

The legends sometimes over- 
printed on stamps, to show a change 
in their value or in the government, 
are in many cases more intriguing 
than the stamps themselves Infla- 
tion overprints show values in 1948 
Chinese stamps running as high as 
$60,000 (Chinese), in 1923 German 
issues, 50 billion marks 
Having passed through the mes- 
merism of the first stage and the 
goggle-eyed fascination of the sec- 
ond, the collector finds himself in a 
third phase characterized by rest- 
lessness and compulsion His album 
is more like a crossword puzzle 
now — every blank space is a re- 
proach, “completing a set” is an 
obsession. In a general collection, a 
world album, completeness is im- 
possible — there are already more 
than 125,000 major varieties of 
stamps, ranging in market value 
from twopence to ^17,000 (The 
£iy,ooo stamp is an 1856 onc-cent 
British Guiana stamp erroneously 
printed on magenta paper Only 
one copy is known to exist ) 

Every year brings forth about 
2,500 new stamps, many of them 
aimed directly at the collector The 
national economies of places like 
Andorra, Liberia, Liechtenstein, 
Luxembourg, Monaco and San 
Marino depend heavily on postage- 
stamp exports Faced with this 
flood, the “general” collector has to 
push his album to one side and 


begin specializing. The lucky ones 
find a topical interest — ^birds, beards, 
maps — and have great enjoyment 
at small cost. 

Every time a new stamp comes 
out, great numbers of people buy 
one or more full sheets (generally 
of 50 or 100), sure that they will be 
worth a lot some day Their worth 
will depend on how many others 
have had the same idea and whether 
anybody needs them when the 
owner wants to unload them 

A certain coolness exists between 
these mint-sheet buyers and other 
stamp enthusiasts, who regard them 
not as collectors but as hoarders 
The hoarders, in turn, regard the 
album crowd as wool-gatherers 

Perhaps the most fortunate 
mint-sheet buyer in history was a 
collector in Washington who went 
to the post office the day the 24-ccnt 
air-mail stamp was issued in 1918. 
The man ahead of him in line or- 
dered a sheet, probably to be used 
for some such sordid purpose as 
posting letters, and indignantly 
handed it back to the clerk because 
the aeroplanes on all the stamps 
were upside down. 

Feeling the Hand of God upon 
his shoulder, the collector took his 
place at the window. “A sheet of 
24-cent air mails,” he said, “and 
make it the one the other guy didn’t 
want.” The sheet, which proved to 
be the only such error in existence, 
was sold in a few days for $15,000 
(£3,2^0), and any single stamp from 
it is valued today at $3,500 



The Japanese night commander tells the inside story 




m 


kLed the Attack 
rl 











Condensed from Untied 


pt Mitsuo Fuchida 

of the formef Imperial Japanese Navy 
Lclittd by Roger Pineau 

. E WANT \ou to lead our air force 
in the event of our attacking 
Pearl Harbour ” 

It was all I could do not to catch my 
breath It was now late September 1941 
and, if the international situation con- 
tinued to intensity, the attack plan called 
for execution in December. There was 
no time to lose in training for this all- 
important mission 

In mid-November, after the most 
rigorous training, planes were taken on 
board their respectne carriers, which 
then headed for the Kuril Islands, travel- 
ling singly and on difTerent courses to 
avoid attention Then, at 0600 on the 
dark and cloudy morning of November 
26, our 28-ship striking force, including 
six carriers, left the Kuriles 

Vice-Admiral Nagumo was in com- 
mand ot the Pearl Harbour Attack 
Force “If negotiations with the United 
States reach a successful conclusion,” he 
had been instructed, “the striking force 
will return immediately to the home- 
land ” Unaware of this, however, the 
crews shouted ''Banzai^"' as they took 
what might be their last look at Japan. 

States Naval Institute Proceedings IQ 



I could feel their keen enthusiasm 
and fighting spirit. Still I could not 
help doubting whether Japan had 
the proper confidence for carrying 
out a war. 

Our course was to be between 
the Aleutians and Midway Island so 
as to keep out of range of American 
air patrols, some of which were sup- 
posed to extend 600 miles. We sent 
three submarines ahead to report 
any merchant ships sighted, so that 
we could alter course and avoid 
them We maintained a constant 
alert against U.S. submarines. 

Strict radio silence was observed 
throughout, but we listened for 
broadcasts from Tokyo or Honolulu 
to catch any word about the out- 
break of war. In Tokyo a liaison 
conference between the government 
and the High Command was held 
every day from November 27 to 30 
to discuss the U.S proposal of the 
26th. It was concluded that the 
proposal was an ultimatum tending 
to subjugate Japan and making war 
inevitable, but that peace efforts 
should be continued **to the last 
moment.” 

The decision for war was made at 
an Imperial Conference on Decem- 
ber I. Next day the General Staff 
issued the order; ”X Day will be 
December 8” (December 7 in Ha- 
waii and the United States), Now 
the die was cast. We drove head- 
long towards Pearl Harbour. 

Why was that Sunday chosen as 
X Day.^ Because our information 
indicated that the American Fleet 


returned to Pearl Harbour at week- 
ends after training periods at sea. 
Also because the attack was to be 
co-ordinated with our operations in 
Malaya, where air raids and land- 
ings were scheduled for dawn of 
that day. 

Intelligence reports on U.S. Fleet 
activities were relayed to us from 
Tokyo : 

December 7 (December 6, Ha- 
waiian time). “No balloons, no tor- 
pedo-defence nets deployed round 
battleships in Pearl Harbour. All 
battleships are in No indications 
from enemy radio activity that 
ocean-patrol flights being made in 
Hawaiian area Aircraft carrier 
Lexington left harbour yesterday. 
Enterprise also thought to be oper- 
ating at sea.” 

About this time we received Ad- 
miral Yamamoto’s message: “The 
rise or fall of the Empire depends 
upon this battle; everyone will do 
his duty with utmost efforts,” 

We were 230 miles due north of 
Oahu, on which Pearl Harbour is 
situated, shortly before dawn on 
December 7 (Hawaiian time) when 
the carriers turned and headed into 
the northerly wind The battle flag 
was now flying at each masthead. 
There was a heavy pitch and roll 
that had caused some hesitation 
about taking off in the dai;k. I de- 
cided it was feasible. Flight decks 
vibrated with the roar of aircraft 
engines completing their warm-up. 

Now a green lamp was waved in 
a circle. “Take off!” The engine of 



our foremost fighter plane built up 
to a crescendo — and then the plane 
was off, safely. There were loud 
cheers as each plane rose into the 
air. 

Within 15 minutes 183 fighters, 
bombers and torpedo planes had 
taken off from the six earners and 
were forming up m the still-dark 
sky, guided only by the signal lights 
of the leading planes. After arcTing 
over the fleet formation, we set 
course due south for Pearl Harbour. 
The time was 0615. 

Under my direct command were 
49 medium bombers. To my right 
and slightly below me were 40 tor- 
pedo planes; to my left, about 600 
feet above me, were 51 dive 
bombers; flying cover for the for- 
mation were 43 fighters. 

At 0700 1 calculated that we should 
reach Oahu in less than an hour. 
But, flying over thick clouds, we 
could not see the surface of the 
water and consequently had no 
check on our drift. I switched on 
the radio direction finder to tunc in 
the Honolulu radio station and soon 
picked up some music. By turning 
the antenna 1 found the exact direc- 
tion from which, the broadcast was 
coming and corrected our course. 
We had been five degrees off. 

Now I heard a Honolulu weather 
report: “Partly cloudy, with clouds 
mostly over the mountains. Visi- 
bility good. Wind north, ten knots.” 

What a lucky break for us! A 
more favourable situation could not 
have been imagined. There would 


be openings in the clouds over the 
island. 

About 0730 the clouds bredte sud- 
denly, and a long white line of coast 
appeared. We were over the north- 
ern tip of Oahu. It was time for our 
deployment. 

A report came in from one of two 
reconnaissance planes which had 
gone ahead, giving the locations oi 
ten battleships, one heavy cruiser 
and ten light cruisers. The sky 
cleared as we moved in on the tar- 
git, and I began to study our objec- 
tives through binoculars. The ships 
were there all right. “Notify all 
planes to launch attacks,” 1 ordered 
my radio operator. It was 0749. 

The first bombs fell at Hickam 
Field, where heavy bombers were 
hned up. The next places hit were 
Ford Island and Wheeler Field. In 
a short time huge billows of black 
smoke were rising from these bases. 

My medium-bomber group kept 
east of Oahu past the southern tip of 
the island. None but Japanese planes 
were in the air. Ships in the harbour 
still appeared to be asleep. The 
Honolulu radio broadcast continued 
normally. We had achieved sur- 
prise! 

Knowing the General Staff would 
be anxious, I ordered the following 
message to be sent to the fleet . “We 
have succeeded in making surprise 
attack. Request you relay this report 
to Tokyo.” 

Now I saw waterspouts rising 
alongside the battleships. Our tor- 
pedo bombers were at work. It was 



THS READER'S l!>mEiT ' 


time to launch our bombing at- 
tacks, so I ordered my pilot to bank 
sharply, the attack signal for the 
planes in our group. All ten of my 
squadrons formed into a single 
column with intervals of 600 feet 
— a gorgeous formation. 

As my group made its bomb run, 
American anti-aircraft from ship- 
board and shore batteries suddenly 
came to life. Dark-grey bursts blos- 
somed here and there until the sky 
was clouded with shattering near 
misses which made our plane trem- 
ble. I was startled by the rapidity 
of the counter-attack, which came 
less than five minutes after the 
first bomb had fallen. The Japanese 
reaction would not have been so 
quick — the Japanese character is 
suitable for offensives but does not 
adjust readil) to the defensive. 

My squadron was headed for the 
Nevada^ which was moored at the 
northern end of Battleship Row on 
the east side of Ford Island. It was 
nearly time for bomb release when 
we ran into clouds Our leading 
bomb aimer waved his hands back 
and forth to indicate that we would 
have to pass, and we circled over 
Honolulu to await another oppor- 
tunity. Meanwhile, other groups 
made their runs, some making three 
tries before succeeding. 

Suddenly a colossal explosion oc- 
curred in Battleship Row. A huge 
column of dark-red smoke rose to 
1,000 feet, and a stiff shock wave 
-reached our plane. A powder maga- 
zine must have exploded. The at- 


tack was in full swing; smoke from 
fires and explosions filled most of 
the sky over Pearl Harbour. 

Studying Battleship Row through 
binoculars, I saw the big explosion 
had been on the Arizona. She was 
still flaming fiercely, and since her 
smoke covered the Nevada, the 
target of my group, I looked for 
some other ship to attack. The 
Tennessee was already on fire, but 
next to her was the Maryland I 
gave an order changing our target 
to this ship, and once again we 
headed into the anti-aircraft fire. 

As the leading bomb aimer drop- 
ped his bomb, the pilots, observers 
and radio operators in the other 
planes shouted, “Release ! ” — and 
down went all our bombs. I imme- 
diately lay flat on the floor to watch 
through a peephole. Four bombs in 
perfect pattern plummeted away. 
They grew smaller and finally dis- 
appeared just as tiny white flashes 
appeared on and near the ship. 

From a great altitude near misses 
are much more obvious than direct 
hits because they create wave rings 
in the water which are plain to see. 
Observing two such rings plus two 
tiny flashes, I shouted, “Two hits!** 
I felt sure considerable damage had 
been done I ordered the bombers 
which had completed their runs to 
return to our carriers, but my plane 
remained to observe and conduct 
operations still in progress. 

Pearl Harbour and vicinity had 
been turned into complete chaos. 
The Utah had capsized. The West 



/ LEt) rtiEATfACk ON PEARL HARBOUR 




Virginia and Ol^ahoma^ their sides 
almost blasted off by torpedoes, 
listed sharply in a flood of heavy oil. 
The Arizona was listing badly and 
burning furiously The Maryland 
and Tennessee were on fire. The 
Pennsylvania^ which was in dry 
dock, was unscathed — evidently the 
only battleship that had not been 
attacked 

During the attack many of our 
pilots noted the brave efforts of 
American pilots to get planes off the 
ground Though greatly outnum- 
bered, they flew straight in to en- 
gage our craft Their effect was 
negligible, but their courage com- 
manded admiration and respect. 

It took the planes of our first at- 
tack wave about an hour to com- 
plete their mission B\ the time they 
were headed back to our carriers, 
having lost three fighters, a dive 
bomber and five torpedo planes, our 
second wave of 171 planes swept in. 

The sky was now so covered with 
clouds and smoke that planes had 
difficulty locating their targets. To 
complicate their problems further, 
the ship and ground anti-aircraft 
fire had become heavy 

The second attack achieved a nice 
spread, hitting the least damaged 
batdcships as well as previously un- 
damaged cruisers and destroyers. 
This attack also lasted about one 
hour, but due to the increased re- 
turn fire It suffered higher casualties 
\ — SIX fighters and 14 dive bombers. 

After the second wave headed 
back to the carriers I circled Pearl 


Harbour once more to observe and 
photograph the results I counted 
four battleships definitely sunk, 
three severely damaged Still an- 
other battleship appeared to be 
slightly damaged, and extensive 
damage had also been inflicted on 
other types of ships. The seaplane 
base at Ford Island was in flames, 
as were the airfields, especially 
Wheeler. 

Owing to the dense pall of smoke, 
damage to airfields was not deter- 
minable It was apparent, however, 
that a goodly percentage of the 
island’s air strength must have been 
destroyed in the three hours my 
plane was in the area we did not 
encounter a single enemy plane. 

My plane was about the last to 
get back to the fleet, where refuelled 
and rearmed planes were being 
lined up in preparation for another 
attack I was summoned to the 
bridge immediately. Admiral 
Nagumo’s staff, while waiting for 
my report, had been engaged in 
heated discussion about the advisa- 
bility Oi launching another attack. 

“Four battleships definitely sunk,” 
I reported “We have achieved 
much destruction at airfields and air 
bases. But there are still many tar- 
gets which should be hit.” 

I urged another attack. Admiral 
Nagumo, however — in a decision 
which has since been the target of 
much criticism by naval experts — 
chose to retire. Immediately flag 
signals were hoisted, and our ships 
headed northwards at high speed. 






M y friend’s husband is notor- 
iously forgetful of all anniver- 
saries, so she was pleasantl\ sur- 
prised in February when he re- 
membered one Returning from her 
marketing she found this note in the 
post-box “Sweetheart, \ou will 
find my V^alcntme gift to you on 
the bed.” 

She ran upstairs in high antici- 
pation. On the bed, fast asleep, was 
her husband. —Mrs p o s 

I N A men’s clothing shop a tiny 
slip of a girl was waiting on a 
man who must ha\e weighed at 
least 1 8 stone. He wanted to buy a 
belt but did not know the size, so 
the girl produced a tape measure. 
For a moment she stood eyeing her 
customer, a puzzled look on her 
face. Then she smiled in relief. 
“Here,” she said cheerfully, “you 
hold this end while ^ run round.” 

—Mrs EJS 


T wo WOMEN sitting on a bench di- 
rectly behind me were discussing 
jobs “Are you doing any baby-sit- 
ting these days^” asked one. 

“Yes, and I’ve got a real nice 
place,” the other replied 
“What do vou get?” 

“Five bob an hour, bus-fare and 
spanking privileges ” — mrs fas 

M y 78TH BIRTHDAY is close at 
hand The other day I came 
out of a restaurant in Washington 
to find m\sclf in a blizzard Whirl- 
ing snow and blaring traffic sur- 
rounded me and 1 saw two women 
nearlv blown off their feet In des- 
peration I appealed to a stalwart 
voung man who was waiting under 
a street lamp. “Would you be will- 
ing to help an old lady across the 
street?” 

“Suhtennly, ma’am,” he replied 
in the unmistakable voice of the 
Deep South, ^'Wheah is she^" —m p. 


cs^^t’s an advantage to be pretty— you get attention without trying. 
But after the first five minutes you are on your own. 

—Loretta Young, quoted in Loi Angelea Timex 


They have their idiosyncrasies — as this 
survey of customs and habits shows 



Meet the Typical American 
Male and Female 






Condensed from “The 1954 Pocket Almanac” 


HE AVERAGE American male 
stands five feet nine inches 
tall, weighs eleven stone 
four, prefers brunettes, baseball, 
beefsteak and fried potatoes, and 
thinks the ability to run a home 
smoothly and efficiently is the most 
important quality in a wife. 

The average American female is 
five feet four, weighs nine stone six, 
can’t stand an unshaven face, thinks 
husbands drink too much, prefers 
marriage to a career, but wants the 
word “obey” taken out of the wed- 
ding ceremony. 

This IS a short sample of the data 
which Dr. George Gallup’s Institute 
of Public Opinion has been system- 
atically gathering foi years on the 
customs and habits of Americans. 
Here- are additional facts— some 
^serious, some light — about the 
American people . 

One in three complains that his 


feet hurt. One in five has trouble 
with his hearing Two m three wear 
glasses 

Americans are weight-conscious: 
34 million adults consider them- 
selves too fat and would like to take 
ofl poundage. But only one in four 
has seriously tried to do anything 
about it. Women are much more 
eager to lose weight than men (45 
per cent as opposed to 25 per cent). 

Approximately half of U.S. adults 
have trouble getting to sleep. Mar- 
ried people experience less sleepless- 
ness than single. The divorced and 
widowed have most trouble. Main 
cause nervous tension. Foui in ten 
do nothing about it, just toss and 
turn. The next largest group takes 
sedatives and pills. Only a few 
count sheep. Although twin beds 
are supposed to be increasing in 
popularity, the overwhelming ma- 
jority of American husbands and 



26 


THE READER'S DICEST 


March 


wives still sleep in double beds. Only 
one in eight says he or she sleeps in 
a twin b^. 

Men under 30 like coloured polish 
on women’s finger-nails; men over 
30 don’t. Men divide evenly (42 per 
cent apiece) on whether a woman’s 
looks or her brains are more import- 
ant. And whoever said that gentle- 
men prefer blondes is mistaken* six 
out of every ten prefer brunettes, 
three in ten blondes, and the other 
one likes redheads Blondes, inci- 
dentally, arc outnumbered by other 
women in the American population 
five to one. 

The best age for an American girl 
to get married, says the survey, is 
21 and for a man 25 Long engage- 
ments are better than short Engage- 
ments of three months or less lead 
to three times as many divorces 
as engagements of two years or 
more. 

What one quality do these hus- 
bands and wives most dislike in 
each other ^ Bad temper is number 
one for both sexes After that, hus- 
bands object to fussiness and gossip- 
ing, whereas wives frown on drink- 
ing, smoking, gambling and “just 
not paying enough attention ’’ 
Wives tend to be more critical than 
husbands: 71 of 100 women find 
fault with their husbands as com- 
pared with 54 of 100 men who find 
fault with their wives. 

Sixty-two per cent of American 
husbands iiclp with the housework. 
Almost one-third wash up regularly 
or frequently; two out of every five 


help with the cooking. The propor- 
tion of husbands who help in the 
house is greater among the best-edu- 
cated than among the least-educated 
— which leaves open the question of 
just who IS the cleverest. 

American adults of both sexes, 
looking back on their childhood, say 
that Mother had a greater influence 
on their lives than Father Forty- 
eight per cent remember Mamma’s 
influence most — including possibly 
the backside of a hairbrush admin- 
istered to the backside of the heir 
— whereas only 22 per cent say that 
Father was the greater influence. 
A typical comment shows the rea- 
son why • “Mother knew what we 
were doing; Dad was only home 
nights.’’ 

The notion that today’s young 
people are “going to the dogs” finds 
little support among American par- 
ents. The weight of opinion is that 
these young folk have more common 
sense than those of a generation ago. 
They also think that the parents, 
not the children, are chiefly to blame 
for juvenile delinquency. 

Reading habits of the American 
people are confined largely to news- 
papers and magazines To the ques- 
tion “Arc you reading any book at 
the present time?” 21 per cent an- 
swered ves, 79 per cent no 

Baseball and football arc the 
American male’s two favourite 
sports to watch. One-fourth of the 
adult population say they bowl, and 
almost one-third of these bowl 
weekly. By contrast only seven per 



TYPICAL AMERICAN— MALE AND FEMALE 


cent play golf and about the same 
proportion play tennis. 

One chilling item of statistics is 
that about half of the American 
adult population would drown if 
tossed into the water. Only 52 per 
cent know how to swim 

The typical American goes to bed 
at ten o'clock on week nights, an 
hour later on Saturdays He gets up 
at 6 30 on weekday mornings, eight 
v^'clock on Sunday He has his week- 
day breakfast at 7am, his lunch at 
noon, his dinner or supper at six in 
the evening At family meals fewer 
than one-third of Americans say 
grace 

Americans believe that the typical 
American is generous, friendly, un- 
derstanding, religious, freedom- 
loving and progressive His worst 
defects arc believed to be that he 
IS shallow, egotistical, extravagant, 
monc\-mad 

The tNpical American likes most 
of his neighbours — only two per 
rent say they don’t get on Almost 
half do shopping for their neigh- 
bours, and SIX out of ten lend and 
borrow things, while nearly thrcc- 
fourchs take in messages, parcels 
and other deliveries for a neigh- 
bour who IS out. 

The two favourite mottoes of the 


^7 

American people are- “Do unto 
others as you would have them do 
unto you” and “Live and let live.” 
Ninety-four per cent say they be- 
lieve in God and 68 per cent in life 
after death. A much smaller pro- 
portion attends church — roughly 
two out of five go more than “occa- 
sionall> ” But practically everyone 
— 95 per cent — ^believes that prayer 
helps in one way or another. 

Seven out of ten think that the 
man who lives on the farm is hap- 
pier than the man who lives in the 
city — and farmers back up this 
statement. Among men and women 
who work outside the home in full- 
time jobs, only 55 per cent like their 
jobs enough to say they would 
take up the same line of work 
if they had their lives to live over 
again 

If you define an optimist as one 
who thinks things are going to get 
better, and a pessimist as one who 
thinks they are going to get worse, 
then the optimists outnumber the 
pessimists in the United States by 
about fi\e to four. 

In spite of war, high taxes, high 
prices, the majority of Americans 
think they are better off than their 
parents were. Only one person in 
four thinks he is worse off. 


^/hen M i]or-Gcner?l William Dean was released by his 
Communist captois, a newspaperman asked him what sus- 
tained him the most during those three years of misery. “I 
never felt sorry for myself,” replied the General, “and that’s 
what licked it. Self-pity whips more people than anything 

else.” — King Features 




An 

Unforgettable 
Character 



^ttfy MacUonald \uthor of ‘ The tgg and I,’ 
Anvlxidy ( an Do An\thmg, 


etL 


.ARLY last 
who was 
the seaside 
water glittering in 


summer a tnend 
visiting us at 
looked at the 
the sunlight, 


sniffed the delicious seaweedy, drift- 
woody, clammy air and said, “Fd 
give anything if we could have a 
place on a beach I adore salt water, 
George loves fishing and it would 
be wonderful for the children 

“Why don’t you!^*’ I asked. “You 
can afford it “ 

“It’s George’s mother,” she said. 
“She lives with us, you know And 
she is so feeble. After all, she is 62.” 

Just then my mother came down 
the path wheeling a barrow full of 
chicken manure. It was a big load, 
but Mother dumped it and vigor- 
ously raked it round the rose 
bushes. When she had finished she 
took off her gardening gloves and 


lit a cigarette My friend sighed, 
saying, “You don’t know 'how 
lucky you are to have such a young 
mother ” 

I looked at her in amazement. 
“My mothei is 75,” I said 

“I don’t bclicNC it,” she said. She 
kept staring at Mother as if I had 
made her up I looked too and saw 
a slender, erect, grey-haircd woman, 
her face and arms tanned from the 
sun, her expression serene When 
she had finished her cigarette she 
lifted her wheelbarrow and went 
back up the path. 

“I don’t see how she does it,” my 
friend said. 

I do. Mother is never sorry for 
herself. In the more than 40 years I 
have known her she has never, to 
my knowledge, indulged in the de- 
bilitating business of self-pity. The 



m UNFORGETTABIM CHARACTER 


self-pity that nowadajs travels un- 
der psychiatric aliases, the misery 
that IS usually accompanied by other 
miseries such as overeating, getting 
drunk, taking dope, collapsing with 
imaginary ailments, huddling in re- 
tirement, or joining the Communist 
Partv 

“Saddos (our familv word for 
self-pitieis) are bores," Mother sa\s. 
“Nobody wants a saddo about the 
place. When \ou start to feci sorr) 
foi \()iirsclf — and c\cr\bodv docs at 
one time or another — do something 
Work in the garden, wash the win- 
dows, bake a pie, write a letter — do 
something You can’t be bus\ and 
sorry for yourself at the same time ” 

I don’t know where Mother 
learned this secret of sercnit\, but it 
has made her stitnuous life a happy 
one It has also pros cd to her friends 
and her children that age is a state 
of mind 

Mother has ii grandchildren and 
five great-grandchildren, vet she is 
actually younger than man\ of my 
daughters’ friends who arc in their 
early 20s, younger than most of my 
friends who arc in their 40s, and 
\ounger than all her friends who 
arc in their 60s and 70s 

Mother is an enthusiastic and 
successful gardener, a superb (ook, 
a good painter, an excellent horse- 
woman She is an avid reader, ever 
since I can remember she has gob- 
bled’ up at least one book and sever- 
^ al magazines a day. She has helped 
with more homework, done more 
baby-sitting and listened to more 


dreams than any living woman. Yet 
recently when she had a physical ex- 
amination the 35-ycar-old doctor 
said, “I would give anything to be 
half as healthy as you are*’’ 

In addition to her other activities 
Mother runs a visiting-nurse service 
among our family and friends. She 
has a small brown suitcase used ex- 
clusivcK for these trips Last winter 
my 23-v car-old daughter Joan, who 
then had two babies and was ex- 
pecting a third, got the flu I also 
had It, so Joan called Margai— the 
grandchildren's name foi Mother. 

The next day Joan phoned me. 
“You’ll never know what it was like 
yesterdav * Beckv and hleidi were 
bawding, the furnace had gone off, 
the house was freezing and I had 
such a headache I couldn’t sec. 
Then a taxi drove up, and Margar 
stepped out carrv ing her little brown 
bag. I felt like a war prisoner 
watching the tanks arrive 
“Margar came in, kissed us all, 
and in about five minutes there was 
a fire in the fireplace, the kettle was 
boiling for tea and the children were 
happy Margar even persuaded that 
stinking furnace repairman to come 
out She’s just wonderful ’’ 

I know how Joan felt I have ob- 
served Mother on the scene of at 
Ic.ist a hundred crises (large families 
have lots of crises), and she radiates 
an aura of peace that is actually 
visible Mother says this is merely 
long practice in the face of disaster. 
I think It is an inner serenity that 
follows in the wake of selflessness. 



THE READERS DIGEST 


JO 

Mother was married when she 
was comparatively young to a min- 
ing engineer. His work took them 
all over the United States, Alaska, 
Canada and Mexico. In the course 
of their travels, she produced five 
girls and a boy, the last child being 
born five months after Daddy died 
at the age of 39. 

The loss of her husband was a ter- 
rific blow, yet I can never remember 
her sobbing in the dark, moaning 
over Daddy’s picture, hugging us 
fiercely and unexpectedly or in any 
way clouding the lives of her chil- 
dren with her personal tragedy as 
so many women do. 

Then she lost most of her money 
through poor investments, bad ad- 
vice from well-meaning friends, and 
mismanagement on the part of 
some of Daddy’s former business 
associates She didn’t complain She 
wasn’t bitter. We all worked Espe- 
cially Mother, who took care of her 
own children, several adopted ones 
and my children She did all her 
own work, including washing and 
ironing and gardening, and wrote 
a radio serial. She was on the air for 
about three years. 

One winter we burned books to 
keep warm We had meat loaf that 
year for 49 Sundays running. Yet I 
remember it as one of our happiest. 
Our house always bulged with peo- 
ple, and there was always laughter. 

Mother makes her home now offi- 
cially with me. This means only 
that her pictures of Daddy, her sew- 
ing box and sketching things arc at 


my house. She herself is wherever 
she IS needed most. 

When she is with me she helps 
with my letters, does most of the 
work in our big garden, takes care 
of the house when I am writing, 
makes lovely water-colour and pas- 
tel sketches of the country, cooks 
for eight to umpteen people, helps 
me baby-sit with my five grandchil- 
dren, gives me moral support when 
my writing strikes a snag, makes 
exquisite flower arrangements and 
reads constantly. 

Last night a little after midnight 
I got up to get Johnny his blanket, 
which is always falling out of the 
top bunk, and to slap Tudor, our 
dog, for sleeping on the couch 
(which he has been doing for 14 
years). Mother was still in the liv- 
ing-room reading. “Do you know 
how late it is?” I said “You should 
be in bed.” 

“I should not,” Mother said. “I 
hate going to bed early. Let’s have 
some biscuits and milk ” 

As we ate, Mother said, “Today’s 
writers bore me stiff with their de- 
pressing psychological problems. I’m 
going back to Dickens ” 

I said, “I’m so worried about that 
television script I’m working on I 
can’t sleep Nothing I’ve written is 
any good.” 

“Nonsense,” Mother said. “Judg- 
ing by the bilge that’s on the air 
most of the time, even I could write 
a television show.” 

She undoubtedly can and she 
probably will. 



What happened when a St. Bernard 
had an idea 



My Dog Marcus 

Condensed from the book 
“The Best Humour from Punch” 

Cohn Howard 

Anyone who has met Marcus, my 
/jL huge, handsome, lazy, stupid 
St. Bernard, will be incredulous to 
know that he recently had an idea. 
This idea was certainly the first he 
ever had and I cannot think how he 
recognized it. 

The idea had to do with easing 
life for St. Bernards. For it is Mar- 
cus’s belief that life should consist 
of i6 hours of sleep, six hours of rest 
and two hours of intensive eating. 
But he is occasionally called on to 
work — that is, to take an amble 
• after breakfast as far as the nearest 
corner and back. A real dog would 

**Th 0 Best Humour from Punch, 


look forward to this, trembling with 
expectation. To Marcus it is sheer, 
brutal slavery. 

Roughly, then, his idea was this: 
“If I were deaf I couldn’t hear 
when they called me for my walk, 
and they wouldn’t be able to shift 
me, because nothing can shift me. 
So I will pretend to be deaf.” 

The day he put his plan into 
execution, my wife came to me 
much perttirbed. “Poor old Marcus 
has gone deaf I” she exclaimed. 

“Deaf?” I cried. “But he could 
hear perfectly last night.” And I 
went into the kitchen and addressed 
him. “Coming for a walk, Mar- 
cus?” I said. 

Marcus, with masterly histrio- 
nism, gazed at me with eager devo- 
tion, as though he would have given 
his last bone to have heard what I 
said After a good deal of shouting 
we left him where he was, and he 
went to sleep smiling. 

It was some days before we 
noticed that Marcus was only par- 
tially deaf; he was still able to hear 
anything connected with food. I was 
carving one Sunday when a tiny 
scrap of meat slipped from the fork 
and dropped on the carpet. Al- 
though Marcus was asleep in the 
kitchen— one room and one passage- 
way removed— he heard it fall. He 
hurtled into the dining-room and 
wolfed It down. 

“Hey!” I said. “I thought you 
were deaf,” 

Marcus’s jaw and tail both 

copyright 1953, is published by 



THE KEADEl^S DIGEST 


3 ^ 

dropped. He went back into char- 
acter immediately. 

Not much later he failed to hear 
three successive commands to come 
out for a walk — ^then leapt to his 
feet at the arrival of the butcher. 
My wife and I finally agreed he had 
to be cured. 

The course we took was not, per- 
haps, entirely sporting. Marcus had 
gone deaf; u/e would go silent. 
When Marcus was about, we would 
go through the actions of speaking 
but would not utter a word. 

Marcus’s first reaction was lazy 
puzzlement. Very soon he was 
really worned. Had he overesti- 
mated his power and gone really 
dcaf'^ The horrible part was that, 
for all he knew, we might be talk- 
ing about food The thought of 
what he might be missing was ob- 
viously torture to him 


As we mouthed silently at one 
another, Marcus would stare ago- 
nizcdly into our faces, trying, I 
swear, to lip-read. Also, as he never 
got called for meals, he hardly dared 
close his eyes lest he miss one. I 
doubt if he got 14 hours’ real sleep 
out of the 24, and he worried him- 
self down to about 300 pounds. 

We kept this up for several days. 
Then we decided to restore Mar- 
cus’s hearing to him I said aloud 
one morning, “Come on, Marcus* 
Time for your walk, boy ” 

An expression of beautiful relief 
spread over his vast face He wasn’t 
deaf after all* He bounded to his 
feet He frisked to the gate like a 
mettlesome cart-horse He joyously 
took one of the longest walks of his 
career — almost half a mile 
Marcus was not troubled again 
with his deafness Neither were we 


Cartoon Quips 

One man to another at dance: “I have my eye on a strapless gown 
that can’t possibly survive another samba.” —The Saturday Evening Post 

Dressmaker, measuring stout matron dictates to assistant: “Bust 32, 
waist 24, hips 35; scale i '4 inches to one inch.” —Punch 

Woman driver to garage mechanic * “My husband tells me there’s a 
screw loose in the driver — wherever that is I” —Collier’s 

Wife of departing couple to dinner hostess : “Wc hate to eat and run, 
but Hcrb'T't is still hungry ” — Kmg Feature* 

Man introducing redhead to friend: “Fred, in my time I’ve been 
married to a blonde, a brunette and a redhead — I’d like you to meet her.” 

—True 



From its ruins, buried almost i.goo years ago, there emerges a graphic 
picture of life in ancient Pompeii at the height of its wealth and beauty 



The City That Died to Live 

By Donald and Louise Peattie 


HE MORNING of AugUSt 24, 
D 79, dawned like any 
summer day in southern Italy, hot, 
bright and still The city of Pompeii 
basked among its silver) olive groves 
and dark umbrella pines No one 
locked with foreboding towards Mt. 
Vesuvius, five miles awa) , the throat 
of Its ancient crater plugged with 
rock, vineyards serenely clothing its 
flanks Set close to the mountain and 
the Bay of Naples, the quaint walled 
town, already boo years old, had be- 
come a summer resort for wealthy 
Romans. With a population grown 
to 20,000, It now spread beyond its 
walls, like flowers escaping a fence. 

Amid the buff, grey or black vol- 
canic rock of which the shops and 
ordinary houses were built, the mar- 
ble on suburban villas and on the 


temples in the heart of town glit- 
tered sumptuously as the sundial 
shadow crept towards the fated fig- 
ure I post meridiem. The shop- 
keepers were closing their wooden 
shutters for the long Latin lunch 
hour The girls getting water and 
gossip at the corner fountain called 
good-bye to one another and went 
their wa^ with the tall slim jars 
upon their shoulders. A baker 
shoved' 81 loaves into his oven and 
closed the iron door In a wine shop 
a customer laid his money on the 
counter. Suddenly an earthquake 
convulsed the city. 

The barmaid never picked up the 
money. The baker’s loaves were 
burned to a crisp. (Those loaves can 
be seen today in the Naples mu- 
seum ) For, from the first shock, all 

33 




THE READER’S DIGEST 


March 


34 

normal activity in Pompeii was for 
ever suspended. 

But the earthquake was only the 
roused beast in Vesuvius shaking 
itself before action Roaring and 
flashing hellish light, the volcano 
emitted a weird cloud whose top 
spread out and out Birds dropped 
dead out of the skv Sheets of water 
from breaking pipes and upheaved 
springs lushed down the citv streets 

Thousands fled at once These 
were the wise — and the wisest kept 
on travelling all that afternoon and 
night. Nothing else could have put 
them outside the circle of death that 
Vesuvius was inscribing round itself 

Others lingered, for reasons their 
corpses were to show One group 
was found sitting piouslv round a 
funeral feast A man found King in 
the street still clutched a handful of 
gold coins — a looter, perhaps Some 
people dcla\ed to burv valuables 
and were buried themselves Others 
spent precious time loading r.irts 
with their possessions Others hid in 
their houses, shutting their doors 
against the mounting drift of vol- 
canic ash, onlv to find that the) 
could never open them again 

Save foi such mute evidence, 
most of v/hat we know about the 
last hours of Pompeii colics to us 
in the words of an 1 8-year-old boy 
Gams Plinius, called Pliny the 
Younger, was living across the Bay 
of Naples at Misenum with his 
mother and his uncle, known as 
Pliny the Elder, a famous naturalist 
and an admiral in the Roman Navy 


As his uncle’s secretary, the lad fur 
nished authorities with the best ac- 
count that survives 

He tells how the admiral, seeing 
the pillar of smoke pouring out of 
Vesuvius, set out with ships to res- 
cue friends on the doomed shore 
opposite Through a rain of ashes 
and stones, across a tortured sea, the 
elder Pliny reached Stabue, a port 
near Pompeii But so high reared 
the quake-born waves that he could 
not set sail again 

All through the night the earth 
heaved and the mountain spewed 
flame, ash and rocks In Misenum, 
as the night of horror ended, young 
Pliny and his mother joined the 
crowd fleeing the tottering walls It 
was past seven in the morning, \ct 
It grew darker and dirkcr The 
bov's mother, exhausted, begged 
him to leave her to die, but he drew 
her on, under the dusk of falling 
ash Suddcnlv “such darkness as 
one finds in a close-shut room” 
ovcrwAiclmcd them 

As that wing of death spread ovei 
Pompeii, the crowds in panic surged 
to the city gates All these were 
narrow, and each created a bottle- 
neck, jamming traffic with those 
foolish overloacied carts Then, on 
a change in the v;ind, there came 
from the venomous mountain a 
blast of fatal gas — sulphur fumes, 
probably On the beach at Stabiae 
the elder Pliny inhaled one whiff 
and dropped dead Everyw^here 
women threw themselves on their 
children, vainly trying to save them 



795 -^ THE CITY THAT 

from asphyxiation A chained dog 
writhed, baring his teeth at the pain 
of suffocation But the agony could 
have lasted only a few minutes. 

The ashes, mixing with rain, 
made a plaster that hardened round 
the dead in a perfect mould, pre- 
serving them in their final attitudes 
through the centuries. At last, after 
28 hours of eruption, Vesuvius was 
quiet Pompeii lay buried 20 feet 
deep Herculaneum was over- 
whelmed bv a rivci of mud that 
hardened like rock to a depth of 60 
feet W hen at last the sun came out, 
some 2,000 people of Pompeii and 
hundreds in Herculaneum and 
Siabhi were no longer alive to 
see It 

WAS the entombment of Pom- 
pen which saved it for us All other 
cities of ancient times have suffered 
the fgJ''' of change, corruption and 
decay Pompeii did not die a linger- 
ing death, It was killed, swifth, at 
the height of Its wealth and beauty. 
And so It lav for centuries locked 
in the earth, waiting for the hand of 
science to unwrap its ashen shrouds 

During the Middle Ages the loca- 
tion and the very name of Pompeii 
were forgotten An uninhabited 
great ash heap near the Saino River 
bore the name “La (avita, ' mean- 
ing “the city,'’ but what city no one 
longer asked When in 1594 a tun- 
ncLto bring water from the Sarno 
was bored under this hill, the del- 
vers unearthed two insciibcd tablets. 
Since Italian soil holds many relics. 


DIED TO LIVE 

however, the workmen passed them 
by. Not till the tunnel was inspected 
in 1739 by the engineer to the King 
of Naples were the hidden possibili- 
ties suspected. Alcubierre, the en- 
gineer, with a force of 24 workmen, 
and with gunpowder for his favour- 
ite tool, started crude excavations 
again in 1748. Beginner’s kick sank 
his first shaft into Pompeii’s busi- 
ness quarter There, m a few da)s, 
weic discovered a wall painting, its 
colours miraculously glowing, and 
the first body of a victim — the looter 
clutching gold coins 

Excited by these finds, the crew 
dug funousl) — and at random Al- 
cubicrrc pn/xd what items he found 
to grace the King o^^ Naples’ collec- 
tion, but his chief interest was in the 
technical possibilities of gunpowder, 
d’hc delicate technujues of modern 
arch.iologv were still unborn. 

In 1763 there came to Pompeii a 
middle aged (German, J J Winckel- 
mann, a cobbler’s son with a 
scholar’s passion for antiquities But 
Pompeii was bv now under the con- 
tiol ot pedants more determined to 
keep secrets than to unvei! them. 
Forbidden to v isit the site, shadowed 
111 the Naples museum bv a spy and 
not allowed to make a sketch or take 
a measurement, Winckelmann stud- 
ied till he knew by heart the entire 
collection of finds Giving his 
shadow the slip, he bribed the fore- 
man .11 Pompeii, and what he saw 
there — or rather what his genius 
made of it — w'as the true beginning 
of archaeology 



March 


j6 THE READER'S DIGEST 


Before he was murdered four 
years later by an Italian thief in an 
hotel in Trieste, Winckelmann 
turned a jumble of relics into a 
clear, written record of six centuries 
of life in the vanished city. His work 
is one of the great “firsts” in the his- 
tory of human culture, for it indi- 
cated methods for all the important 
excavations that have followed — 
Troy, Mycenae, Crete, Nineveh, 
Babylon, Egypt, Yucatan. But no 
one at Pompeii heeded him then. 

For another century there was 
little intellect used in the unearthing 
of the city. The great central forum 
was uncovered, revealing its mar- 
kets, law courts, temples, then the 
covered theatre, concert hall, the 
sports arena seating 20,000, the zoo, 
and the public baths with their 
radiant-heating system Yet it was 
not vanished ways of life that the 
antiquarians then sought, but only 
art relics for the Naples museum. 
Pompeii, stripped, became a shell 
holding only echoes to which no one 
listened. 

In i860, however, the Bourbon 
kings of Naples were ousted and 
Pompeii passed into the charge of 
Giuseppe Fiorclli, the first distin- 
guished scientist on the spot since 
Winckelmann a century before. He 
called a halt to the careless treasure 
hunt, recognizing as treasure all 
fragments of the past, down to the 
least slim j ix and to the very chariot 
ruts in the stony streets. Now the 
excavation went forward street by 
street, house by house, with system 


and intelligence. These painstaking 
methods have been continued to this 
day, though everything within Pom- 
peii’s walls may not be uncovered 
for another 100 years. 

Under a new policy enthusiasti- 
cally executed by the present super- 
intendent, Professor Amedeo Maiuri, 
every find is restored, when pos- 
sible, in Its place. A broken column 
is raised where once it stood; a scat- 
tered mosaic is put together on the 
spot. This restoration requires far 
more skill than mere exhuming, but 
the workmen — a force of about 
100 — bring reverence to the job. 
It passes from father to son, each 
worker having the right to name 
another from his family, so that the 
honour of wielding a spade in Pom- 
peii has now passed even to the 
fourth generation The government 
supplies three-fourths of the funds 
for the work; the rest is made up 
by receipts from the half-million 
tourists who annually visit Pompeii 

If you leave imagination and 
sympathy behind, you may be dis- 
appointed by the empty streets of 
rums. But if you have the heart to 
people them, if you go with a guide- 
book or better still with a guide, 
you can build again for yourself 
what once was there. 

You will hear the voices and the 
clatter of brisk business. You will 
look down the Street of Abundance, 
or the Street of Fortune, and see 
how all the houses had little shops 
downstairs in front — wine shops, 
shoe shops, bakeries, shops for nsh 



^954 

and meat, to say nothing of the 
great covered market in the central 
forum There glittered the greatest 
temples, the law courts, the ex- 
change, the vaults where were kept 
the public moneys, and in and out 
of the forum passed men and 
V omen bent on affairs that were to 
have no tomorrow 

How like our own these affairs 
were comes to light and life from 
the graffiti, the famous writings on 
Pompeii’s walls. In those da)s bt 
fore the use of paper, blank walls 
were the best medium for reaching 
the public On them — in Latin, 
Greek or Oscan — elections were 
proclaimed, wares advertised, com- 
ing attractions announced Idlers, 
too, left their scribbles — an insult, a 
bit of gossip, a jeer that Quintus 
loves Drusilla 

But It is the inner walls of Pom- 
pen that have yielded the greatest 
wealth of Gnico-Roman painting 
ever found, preserved to us as no- 
whcic else in the ancient world. 
Taking the place of wallpaper and 
of hanging pictures, these paintings 
reveal the taste and dreams of the 
householder. Myths and deities, 
landscapes, temples and battles and 
domesticated cupids made lively 
the rooms Their pigments, those 
wondrous reds and blacks, sky blues 
and sea greens — fixed to the wall 
with a binder of lime, then polished 


37 

over and over — still glow with the 
rapture of living in those far-off 
pagan times 

Those days come closer when you 
step into a Pompeiian house like the 
House of the Golden Cupids. Its 
street wall windowless, such a home 
kept its smile for family and friends 
All Its rooms opened inwards, 
iiround the atrium, a central court- 
yard where la\ a pool fed bv rain 
water from the sloping roofs In 
that genial Pompeiian climate the 
family lived chiefly in the atrium 
here the women sewed and chat- 
tered, here the doves swept down 
from the roof to drink at the pool. 
And here, or in the garden at the 
rear, children chased each other 
round the flower beds — the roses, 
narcissi and violets between low 
borders of box that today arc care- 
fully replanted there 

At night and in winter the family 
gathered in a living-room where a 
brazier gave out cheer In a secluded 
corner was the household altar, with 
Its little statues called Lares and 
Penates, the divinities of family 
luck and love 

The visitor to Pompeii will find 
It is not the few hours of terror and 
the few moments of agony, so long 
ago, that matter here, but rather the 
six centuries of living from which 
survives the powerful and sacred 
sense of our common humanity. 


THE CITY THAT DIED TO UVE 


U^NLY So Much Do I Know As I Have Lived.— Em^rjon 



One of the best cold-war weapons— 
Radio-Free Europe 




By Lcl^nd Stowe Distinguished American foreign correspondent, author of 
Conquest bv Tenor *’ etc 


osEPH Goda, a notoriously brutal 
Communist boss at Hungary’s 
Tatabanya coalmines, was sprawled 
out comfortably in his living quar- 
ters, listening to a radio broadcast 
Suddenly he heard “We arc call- 
ing Joseph Goda, director of Mine 
Number Six at Tatabanya!” 

The words froze Goda 
“Listen carefully, Goda,” com- 
manded the voice, “We know how 
you abuse and exploit your miners, 
and the inhuman conditions under 
which you force them to live Your 
name is m our Blac\ Boo!^ Unless 
you change your habits at once you 
will never escape trial and ruthless 
punishment when liberation comes. 
This is your last chance, Goda ^ ” ' 
Goda had been tuned in to one of 
the free world’s most effective radio 
programmes— “Calling the Com- 
munists,” broadcast by Radio Free 
Europe. Two months later, in July 

ss 


1953, a miner from Tatabanya’s 
Number Six escaped to Salzburg 
He reported that Goda, after this 
kmfe-edged warning, had promptly 
improved the workers’ treatment 

Many other Red slave drivers and 
sadists in Iron Curtain countries 
have been wise enough to react 
similarly. For Radio Free Europe’s 
Black Book is no idle threat Its 
card index now contains full infor- 
mation on some 75,000 Czechoslo- 
vakians, and on a proportionately 
large number of nationals in the 
other satellites Those listed are top 
candidates for attention when libera- 
tion comes 

How IS Radio Free Europe able 
to expose Red terrorists deep inside 
the Iron Curtain^ What is this 
organization, and what are its pur- 
poses'^ 

Radio Free Europe is a bold inno-i 
vation in the East-West battle for 


TRUTH RATTLES THE IRON CURTAIN 


men’s minds. It is unique because it 
IS non-governmental and combines 
the efforts of exiles from the six 
satellite nations, aided by Ameri- 
can specialists and private financial 
contributions. 

Despite six to eight years of Red 
dictatorship, an overwhelming ma- 
jority of the satellite peoples still re- 
main strongly anti-Communist — at 
least 8o per cent by most authori- 
ties’ testimony RFE is credited 
with a major role in having stunted 
the Reds’ indoctrination efforts. 

RFE reaches its vast audience 
through stations called the Voice of 
Free Poland, of Free Czechoslova- 
kia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, 
Albania Their slogans are “Poles 
speaking to Poles,” “Hungarians to 
Hungarians,” “Czechs to Czechs 
That simple fact explains 
RFE’s large audiences RFE speaks 
for, as well as to, the captive peoples 
— in their own idiom and with full 
knowledge ot their psycholog) and 
background 

Satellite Europe’s people need 
news about events inside their own 
countries quite as much as about 
those in the outside world RFE 
stations fill both needs with hourly 
dawn-to-midnight news broadcasts 
Each programme is broadcast 
1 several times from di^crent loca- 
tions, on diflercnt wa\e lengths 
RFE transmitters are on the air al- 
most 2^500 hours per week This is 
the only way that most puppet-state 
citizens — overworked and time- 
monopolized by their Communist 


39 

rulers — can be assured of oppor- 
tunities to listen. 

The tributes paid to RFE by es- 
capees are countless. “I’d nev,cr 
have got out if I hadn’t listened to 
Radio Free Europe,” said a Czech 
who recently arrived in Munich. 
“Until I tuned in one night I didn’t 
know the border police had electri- 
fied the wires in our region I got 
mvself an insulated wire cutter. 
With that It was simple ” 

A 13-year-old Polish boy, Wlady- 
slaw Hardyn, managed to reach 
West Berlin last August because he 
had heard another Polish boy of the 
same age tell over RFE how he had 
escaped the previous November. 
“The Communists were going to 
force me to work in a factory,” 
Wladyslaw said, “but now 1 felt 
sure I could reach the West because 
so many others had ” 

When Stalin died, RFE techni- 
cians came up with a new wrinkle 
called ‘‘saturation,” designed to 
frustrate the Soviet satellites’ frantic 
jamming efforts RFE’s entire bat- 
tery of 21 transmitters, strategicalK 
located in Germany and Portugal, 
was trained simultaneously on one 
satellite n.ition after another for a 
half-hour period, filling the airwith 
“Stalin is dead* Your Communist 
oppressors no longer have a leader f” 

A Hungarian who escaped a few 
days latei told what this sensational 
scoop (RFE broadcast the news 
three to nine hours ahead of the 
Red regimes’ radios) meant to peo- 
ple under Red subjugation “My 



40 


THE READER^S DIGEST 


March 


brother came from the village and 
shouted, ‘Stalin is dead ^ Radio Free 
Europe says so!’ The news spread 
like wildfire. People said, ‘It must 
be true because Radio Free Europe 
keeps repeating it.’ Everyone went 
crazy with )oy ” 

It has scored many other scoops, 
telling the satellite peoples of the 
downfall of their top officials before 
the state radio savs a word about it 

To get Its authentic information 
about conditions in cities and vil- 
lages behind the Iron Curtain, 
RFE has built up a news organiza- 
tion which maintains 15 buieaus 
along the satellite periphery irom 
Stockholm to Istanbul The corre- 
spondents are constanth on the 
alert, and provide crime-reporter 
detail 

One Saturday noon last July, 
RFE correspondent Carl Ko^h was 
on his way to a week-end wnth 
friends. Suddenly his car radio 
blurted out ‘Eight (Czechs have 
just crashed through to the ( rerman 
border in a home-made tank’’' 
Koch turned round and raced for 
the spot named To reinforce him, 
Bill Geib, RF'E’s special-events 
chief, dashed from Munich with 
tape recorders and Czech-speaking 
interviewers. The two of them re- 
corded the exciting escape story in the 
escapees’ own voices. In two hours 
the RFE was broadcasting the story 
to all Czechoslovakia. It was an in- 
spiration to every Communist-hat- 
ing Czech To the Reds it was a 
stinging humiliation 


For correspondent Koch and his 
Czech interviewers the scoop was 
only the beginning. They interro- 
gated each escapee on every aspect 
of his daily life, on conditions where 
he worked, on food prices, the acti- 
vities of local Communists — every- 
thing which would provide facts 
upon which future broadcasts to 
Czechoslovakia could be based. 

Whenever an escapee possesses 
exceptional knowledge, a special 
report results — down to the number 
of bus lines which still operate in a 
certain citv, and how often they 
break down A broadcast contain- 
ing minute details like this builds 
confidence among puppet-state lis- 
teners that the facts arc getting 
through. 

Up to 40,000 words in reports 
reach RFE’s front-zone centre in 
Munich each week. There exiled ex- 
perts from all six Iron Curtain 
countries cross-check every state- 
ment against data collected and 
classified over the past three and a 
half years The RFE stationscan’taf- 
ford to give the Red regimes a loop- 
hole by committing factual errors. 

Bv being the “free voice" of the 
enslaved puppet-state peoples, RFE 
docs a job which no Western gov- 
ernment station can approach Non- 
governmental and unrestrained by 
diplomatic etiquette, it can fight 
with no holds barred. 

Check-up raids by Red agents oc- 
cur frequently m all satellite coun- 
tries during RFE broadcasts. After 
several such invasions a number of 



TRUTH RATTLES THE [RON CURTAIN 


^954 

Hungarian families trained their 
dogs to bark at all visitors. The 
Communist police then began seiz- 
ing dogs on the grounds of a non- 
existent rabies epidemic. The Voice 
of Free Hungary countered by tell- 
ing listeners how to save their pets 
by mass protests. 

A factor that makes suppression 
of listening difficult is that the 
Communists themselves are avid 
listeners, because they can’t trust 
their own press and radio to tell 
them what’s happening. In one 
Bulgarian village the Communist 
technician in charge of the public 
loudspeaker system made a practice 
of tuning in RFE under cover of 
Radio Moscow’s stentorian blasts 
One night he got his plug-ins 
mixed, and amazed and delighted 
villagers with an RFE exposure of 
atrocious conditions in a Bulgarian 
slave-labour camp The engineer 
disappeared that night. 

One of the most significant trib- 
utes ever paid to RFE came from 
an inner citadel of Bolshevik dicta- 
torship Budapest’s Ministry of De- 
fence broadcast this warning last 


4 ^ 

March : “The most dangerous 
effect of Radio Free Europe is not 
that it results in organized resist- 
ance, which IS easily detected and 
suppressed, but m personal resist- 
ance , which IS more difficult to 
control ” 

Why do the leaders of Red con- 
quest brand RFE-inspired “per- 
sonal resistance’’ as “most danger- 
ous’*? 

When Lieut. Francis Jarecki was 
explaining to interviewers what 
caused him to fly the first MIG-15 
out of Poland,* he made a remark- 
able statement — especially for a 21- 
year-old youth who had been sub- 
jected to intense Communist 
indoctrination ever since 1945 “I 
was only 13 when the war ended 
We had no true picture of the Wes- 
tern World in our schoolbooks The 
Communists even falsify our own 
Polish history. But they cannot \tll 
three things what Mother said 
about God and Poland, what one's 
heart dictates and what Radio Free 
Europe tells us” 

* See “Why Jarecki Flew West/* The 
Reader's Digest, November, 1953 


Command Performance 

British naval officers arc talking of the signal made by the cap- 
tain of the Diamond after the collision with the cruiser Swiftsure^ 
which was the subject of a court-martial last autumn As the Swift- 
surey hit bows on, went astern, the admiral signalled : “What do 
you intend to do now?” 

The reply from the Diamond's captain at this catastrophic mo- 
ment in his career was : “Buy a farm — “/vtticus” m The Sunday Times 








'HWe.-a -Fort to Hold 


Bvl A R Wyiie 

Author of “ I he Young m Heart,” ”Ke»*pti ot the Hamc 
‘‘\\ftre No Birds Sing ttc 


T he van-driver drew up in our 
lane to take an amused look at 
me 

“Painting quite a bit of the coun- 
tryside, ma’am,” he said 
An exaggeration Still, the grass 
round the fence I was painting was 
spattered white Some of the paint, 
I knew, was on rny nose My 
overalls were stiff with it 
Ours is no ordinary fence It is a 
pampered parasite demanding con- 
stant care And there are, it seems 
to me as I straighten my aching 
back, miles of it. In the spring I set 
out with paint, brushes and brisk 
determination. But no sooner do I 
get one section immaculate than I 
realize with exasperation that the 
sections I painted last autumn have 
a forlorn, reproachful look 
It is like our house. No sooner do 
we get one room spick and span 
than another clamours for fresh cur- 
tains or a new carpet Or the roof 


There is glory in the daily chore 

leaks, staining the bedroom wall- 
paper Or the electric pump needs a 
new motor 

For that matter, I reflect grimly, 
It’s like myself There’s always 
sometliing about me that has to be 
put to rights Physically, mentally 
and spiritually, there are constant 
repair jobs required Yet, soonei or 
later. I’ll be an old woman and some- 
one else will have to paint that fence 
So why not stop now and let every- 
thing in me and about me slide 
comfortably downhill ^ 

Somehow I don’t, or I can’t 
Something more important than 
the fence itself is involved. 

I think with sympathy of my 
young friend Jane with her small, 
crowded house, her husband and 
three children. Every morning she 
gets breakfast for her hungry people 



WE EACH HAVE A FORT TO HOLD 


who in a few houis will be hungry 
all over again , she washes dishes that 
will have to be washed tomorrow 
and tomorrow. Sometimes, she con- 
fessed once, she has an almost ir- 
resistible urge to slam the door on it 
all and escape, at least for a day, into 
freedom 

But she knows that those plates, 
caked with grease, would be wait- 
ing inexorably for her return So she 
keeps at it. Like most of us Like 
her husband, who comes home to 
weed the garden, knowing well the 
weeds will grow again overnight 
Or out he goes with tlie lawn 
mower, to cut the grass that he 
mowed only a few days ago 

Everywhere the fight to “keep 
things up“ goes on — monotonous, 
repetitious tasks that sometimes 
seem so meaningless and fruitless 
But, to humanity’s everlasting 
credit, most of us keep on cleaning, 
repairing, patching up walls that 
would, if left untended, fall, leaving 
the tort wide open to the enemy 

It is not merely a matter of self- 
preservation. “There’s Mrs. Frazer 
next door,” Jane said once “She 
gets overwhelmed with things and, 
in despair, lets them go altogether 
Then when she comes over to weep 
on my shoulder and finds everything 
here all bright and shining she gets 
furious with both of us. But she sees 
it can be done, and goes and does it 
Perhaps if she found that I’d given 
up she’d give up too. And the thing 
would spread all round us, like a 
sort of domestic measles.” 


43 

She looked at me wistfully. “Or 
am I being self-important 
I didn’t think she was 

“Well, you’re doing a good job, 
ma'am,” my van-driver assured me. 
“You’re sprucing up the neighbour- 
hood!” 

I hadn’t consciously thought of it 
in that way But perhaps subcon- 
sciously I had felt when I set out 
with paint and brush that I owed 
somediing to my neighbours, an 
obligation to keep things up in our 
road And if our road and its in- 
habitants keep up, the whole com 
munity gets a lift 
Basically, civilizations don’t fall 
because of lost battles or material 
misfortunes They crumble from 
within — because the average citizen 
has fallen down on his job, sold his 
integrity for ephemeral gam, and 
by neglect and indifference allowed 
his civic and private virtues to fall 
into decay Others, infected by his 
example, follow suit until the whole 
of his world, built up by the patient, 
honest labours of his forefathers, 
rots and tumbles about his ears and 
the barbanan invader takes over 
In this respect we have no private 
lives We are not just responsible to 
and for ourselves. Small fry though 
we be, we are vital links in a vital 
chain When the links, untended, 
rust, the chain breaks 
A friend of mine, now an old, 
heartbroken woman, was once hap- 
pily married. She had two daugh- 
ters and then a son, Peter Because 



44 


THE READER^S DIGEST 


he came late in their lives, and be- 
cause he was a handsome, clever, 
lovable youngster, Peter was the 
darling of his parents’ hearts. 

When Peter was caught stealing 
from his mother’s purse and lied 
about It, he was only lightly repii- 
manded (“It was just a childish 
prank All children pilfer like mag- 
pies.’*) When Peter neglected his 
homework, his father helped him 
— though his aid amounted to cheat- 
ing It was easier for the parents to 
let a little dust gather on their prin 
ciples than to subject themselves 
and their darling son to a vigorous 
house-cleaning 

Years later, Peter became under- 
manager of the local bank In this 
responsible position he made dis- 
astrous speculations, then falsified 
accounts He finalU landed himself 
in prison and part of his commun- 
ity in ruin 

“Nobody else understands how it 
could have happened,” his mother 
said to me “But I understand He 
began to default as a child when he 
stole from me His father and I 
glossed over his weaknesses We 
were slack and careless We let him 
down ” 

It’s fatally easy to let down — to 


turn a blind eye on dusty corners in 
our households and in ourselves. 
This neglect works like a mysterious 
alchemy which turns our best into 
our worst As in Sam, for example — 
the brilliant engineer whose clever- 
ness turned to cutting corners in his 
contracts, for a bigger profit Or 
Jim, who started in local govern- 
ment with a high purpose, but 
found It easier to accept “back- 
handers” — and let down the voters. 
These people arc sentinels who be- 
trayed their citadel Yet if early in 
their careers they had sensed the 
danger of neglecting daily self-disci- 
pline, thev might have ended up as 
trusted captains Instead they went 
down, dragging others with them 
Every time we yield to the temp- 
tation to let down our standards we 
are letting down a civilization which 
has been built up with immeasur- 
able pain and effort It is the patient 
labour of ordinary men and women 
repeating their daily, monotonous 
tasks, always a little better and a 
little more intelligently, who have 
made our world — not perfect, but 
liveable and a few steps above 
that of the savage Laboriously, 
stone bv stone, they built the fort. 
It IS up to us to hold It 



AN AUTOMATIC ICC -dispensing plant in our town, there are 
a number of slots which take coins of various denominations 
and dispense ice of various sizes and kinds Directions are 
printed over each slot In the centre of the machine is a large 

sign WHEN ALL ELSE J-AIIS, TRY READING DIRECTIONS. 

— Contributed by Marian Parmenter 



A true and moving story of how 
America’s much -maligned schools 
perform the job they were created for 

V i » ' . 


By Billte Davts 

N ot so long ago I was a small to town peddling novelties, trading 
ragged hobo girl sitting beside horses, sharpening scissors, making 
a campfire, hungrily licking the keys 
fishy oil from the lid of a sardine Mine was a “lustic-furniture” 
tin Today I am a citizen, clean and family — Dad made willow chairs, 

educated, equal to other citizens tables and novelties from the young 

Perhaps more than most people I willows which grew by the rivers 

am a product of the American Every morning I would set out to 
school system That is why I am peddle the small willow baskets, 
surprised and disturbed at the lack complete with crepe-paper roses 
of appreciation for these schools to- Up one side of the street and down 
da) I want to say something about the other I went, anxiously watch- 
the relationship between public edu- ing for dogs and dreading more 
cation and personal liberty I can than anything else to meet another 
show It plainly by telling my story. child 
I was born into that unique clan The children who lived in houses 
of American gipsies — gipsies by looked so clean and cared for — so 
manner of living rather than by smooth, I used to think My hair 
blood You used to find them was a mass of tangles, my frock 
camped under the bridge or down was usually dirty and never ironed. I 
at the rubbish dump or out by the wanted to be like the children who 
cattle yards of any small southern played in the pretty front gardens, 
town A vagabond people, they How can I ever be like people who 
sometimes picked cotton or fruit, live in houses'^ I asked myself des- 
sometimes gathered Indian corn, perately 

But mostly they travelled from town I would hurry by school build- 
Condensed from The Saturday Evening Post 45 




THE READER’S DIGEST 


March 


46 

mgs — there were so many chil- 
dren round them. They stared and 
laughed and pointed at my high- 
laced canvas shoes (School kids 
wore nice Oxfords or shiny black 
shoes with straps ) 

School* Was that the secret^ Per- 
haps school made the difference be- 
tween tramps like us and people 
who lived in houses The idea be- 
came an obsession Anybodv, I 
thought, can be clean and smooth 
and live in a nice house if he is 
bright And school can make you 
bright 

Schools, I had learned, weie free, 
and every child was supposed to go 
But school meant staving awhile in 
one place, and that was not good for 
the rustic business So for two sears 
after I was old enough to begin 
school I lived in a state of longing 
and frustration. I would peep into 
schoolroom windows, and some- 
times after hours I would slip inside, 
touch a book 01 a desk wondenngK 
and stare fascinated at a blackboard 

Then one September we were 
camped with some circus people 
in the grounds of an old fort in 
Wyoming There was to be a pion- 
eer celebration, and my folks were 
to make rustic novelties for prizes 
It looked as though we should be 
there for several weeks 

“Pm going to xnd my children 
to the school,” one of the women 
told my mother “There’s a school 
bus comes right by here. Why don’t 
you send yours 

Somehow like a miracle there was 


a new frock There was a long red 
pencil, a fat yellow writing tablet 
and a little lunch box. And then I 
was standing with a group of chil- 
dren, waiting ecstatically for the 
school bus 

Soon 1 had a room and a teacher 
and, most wonderful of all, a desk 
When I sat there I was equal to any- 
one (Isc Outside, they could jeer 
at mv clothes and laugh because 1 
h\ed in a tent and peddled in the 
streets Ihit so long as 1 sat at the 
desk and learned my lessons well I 
could be fiec of sickening inferior- 
it\ Some of the clean, smooth chil- 
dren did not do as well as I at 
school Next time they called me a 
dirt\ gips\ It w^ould not hurt so 
much 

There were man\ schools as the 
\ears went b\ There were proud 
new schools of yellow brick There 
were sand scratched wooden cubes 
along Nebraska lanes, and pow'dery 
crumbling red brick cubes in little 
sejuare towns of Kansas 

In each town I would walk to rhe 
school, find a teacher and say, “I 
would like to go to school here, 
please ” 

Without exception, I was greeted 
with kindness Usually there was a 
bustling off to an office to ans^ver 
questions ‘ No address'^ No trans- 
fej from previous schooU No re- 
port card^^ Have you studied long 
division^” 

“No sir, but I belong in the 
fourth grade Just put me in the 
class and let me try it If I can’t do 



/ WAS A HOBO KID 


47 


^954 

the work, you can put me back a 
grade, can’t you*^” In the end my 
questioner would smile and show 
me to a room and a teacher. 

There was Miss Williams, kind 
and motherly, who had found me 
hiding in the break so the children 
could not tease me After that she 
let me slay in at break and water 
her plantb 

There was Miss Euland, quick 
and proficient, who noticed one day 
that I was squinting She took me 
to an eye doctor, bought me the 
glasses he prescribed I could pay 
lor them some dav, Miss Euland 
said, by doing for some other child 
what she had done for me It was 
the nicest thing anyone had ever 
told me, because it meant that Miss 
Euland knew I would not be a 
camper all my life 

That was what made me love 
teachers. They believed in me. Even 
my parents mocked my “highfalut- 
in’ ways,” but the teachers could 
see the spirit flickering dimly within 
that tattered caricature of childhood. 

At last there came that torrid, 
shimmering afternoon when our old 
Model A Ford puffed and steamed 
across a little valley in southern 
California Should we pick dates? 
Beans? Carrots? Should we go on 
to Bakersfield and maybe pick some 
fruit farther along in the San Joa- 
quin valley? Or try our luck ped- 
dling over towards the coast? 

Then I saw the school building 
It was sprawled yellow stucco, sur- 
rounded by date palms and back- 


dropped with a row of dusky hills. 

I caught my breath sharply. 

Dad grinned sardonically. “Bilhc 
secs a school-house,” he said. 

“After all, Dad,” I said, “it is 
October, and this is the year I 
should be at high school ” 

Two hours later we were pitching 
our tent beside a row of tamarack 
trees, and the next morning I went 
to register at the school Several 
other new pupils were seated at a 
table filling in forms Evidently 
the school was accustomed to regis- 
tering transients, and the process 
had been carefully planned — so well, 
m fact, that the same course of 
study was offered to all. As I read 
my schedule my heart sank cook- 
ing, general maths, clothing, Eng- 
lish, hygiene 

“Do we have no choice of sub- 
jects?” I asked the teacher 
Often I have thought how easily 
she could have brushed me aside. 
Instead she came and sat by me. 

“There are electives,” she ex- 
plained “But this is a basic course 
we aic sure you will find profitable 
and enjoyable while you are here.” 

“But 'I can’t spend all that time 
on cooking and sewing,” I said. 
“Already I am older than most 
pupils in my class ” 

She suggested then that we talk 
with the principal 

‘What subjects do you have in 
mind?” the principal asked. 

“History, dramatics, English and 
Spanish,” I said. 

“Dramatics is an upper-division 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


48 

elective, and it seems a little late to 
start a foreign language.” The prin- 
cipal looked at the teacher inquir- 
ingly. 

“Well, if her English has been 
good and she works hard ” 

They called in the Spanish teach- 
er to ask me a few questions. Then 
two other teachers came to sec me, 
and the result was that I was en- 
rolled in all four courses. 

For five months we camped under 
the tamarack trees and I went to 
the yellow secondary school We (all 
eight of us) picked dates or beans or 
carrots; I peddled my baskets from 
door to door in the surrounding 
towns. We cooked on the campfire 
and slept in a row on one long pallet 
in the tent At night, after the others 
had settled on the family bed, I 
did my homework by an ancient 
paraffin lantern. 

Somehow I did not think of my-‘ 
self as a hobo now I was the fresh- 
man who had the leading part in a 
play at Valley High > 

The next autumn I found another 
secondary school in another town, 
and its spirit was the same In the 
classroom, in the debating team, on 
the staff of the school paper, and 
finally in my cherished blue cap and 
gown as I spoke at the graduation 


exercises, I found freedom and 
equality which gave me faith and 
inspiration. 

As I sat on the platform that 
night of graduation, I thought of all 
the tents and wagons and camp- 
grounds and worn-out cars. I 
thought of the canvas shoes I looked 
down at the neat blue-and-whitc 
pumps I was wearing Then I looked 
at the rows of gowns Young people 
from wealthy and prominent fami- 
lies were wearing blue gowns like 
mine I knew then what was meant 
by “democracy.” 

I looked at the row of solemn 
teachers and wondered if they real- 
ized their power to shape a life, to 
change a destiny, to free a world 
How unlimited could be the effects 
of proper education > I glanced at 
the notes of my speech: “What 
East High Has Meant to Me.” 
Childish So inadequate Some day 
I would write a real tribute to the 
teachers and to the schools of the 
United States of America. 

Many times since that night I 
have tried to think of a fitting 
tribute But proper words have 
never come. There is so little I can 
say — except that I am not a hobo 
now. I am a citizen, equal to other 
citizens. And I live in a house. 


Once uncomfortably crowded in a London bus, Edmund Gosse said to 
his companion, W. M Rossetti, “I understand you arc an anarchist.” “I 
am an atheist,” replied Rossetti in a loud voice. “My daughter is an 
anarchist.” A sufficient number of people left the bus indignantly to 

make Gosse and Rossetti comfortable. —Harry Emerton Fotdick, 

The Secret of Vtctortous Ltvmg (The Student Chrittian Movement) 




At Home 
in the Hills 



Condensed from the boo\, Children of Noah** 

Ben Lucicn Burman 

Author of ‘ Steamboat Round the Bend," "Everywhere I Roam," etc 


D ark, mysterious, the 
great Appalachian 
ridge rises from the green 
Cumberland Valley in Ten- 
nessee, stretching out end- 
lessly to the horizon, as though it 
were a Chinese wall built to keep 
all who dwell behind it in a world 
ap,irt 

The wall is breaking Life behind 
the lofty ridge is changing. Motor- 
cars come down the passes where 
once only a mule could wander, and 
the )uke box bellows in the httlc 
towns that formerly knew only the 
mountain fiddler. But much of the 
spirit of the old life and many of 
the old ways remain 
Some conflict between the new 
and the old is always occurring. In 
a little town I was visiting, a moun- 
taineer hitched his horse to one of 
the parking meters newly installed 
before the courthouse. Arrested by 


an overzealous officer, he showed 
he had paid five cents and argued 
that the parking space was for all 
kinds of transport, whether it used 
petrol or hay. The )udgc agreed, 
and horseman and horse went home 
in triumph. 

At the edge of the towns the pave- 
ment ends abruptly. Let the travel- 
ler take a horse or a )ecp and go up 
one of the creeks or branches that 
wind between the towering hills; in 
a few miles he is in another world. 
He will see cabins where old 
women still take out the spinning- 
wheel and make cloth- 
ing from the wool of 
the sheep grazing in 
the valley. Now and 
then he will find a 
cabin where the moun- 
taineer has no lamp or 
candle, only a torch 
made from pitch pine 



49 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


March 


50 

Except for the Mississippi fisher- 
man on his shanty-boat, there is no 
one in all America so fiercely inde- 
pendent as the Kentucky moun- 
taineer He will receive the most 
casual stranger with a quiet hospi- 
talit\ incredible to one who knows 
only the wavs of the cities, sharing 
without a thought his last crust of 
corn biead, he will accept with 
stoic’sni anv trial that stern nature 
sends upon him and hisfields Bullet 
his freedom he threatened, and his 
gentleness bca)mcs blazing angf'r 

It was this spirit that, in the past, 
cause'd so mans of the tend trage 
dies 1 he mountaineers house was 
his castic, and the lands about it his 
unchallenged domain Let an\one 
invade cither, and the intruder’s 
life was the penalty Early land sur- 
ve\s were often sketchy, disputes 
oyer boundaries inevitable I’hc en- 
suing feuds were wars betw een i iv al 
kings 

It was this independent spirit 
which gayc rise to “moonshining ” 
Corn was one of the few crops that 
W'ould take hold on the rocky slopes 
Without highways or railroads the 
mountain man could not compete 
with the crops of the lowlands The 
easiest way to turn his harvest into 
cash was to convert it into whisky 
His corn (and his liquor), he ar- 
gued, was legal property Anyone 
interfering, such as a rc venue officer, 
was acting illegally Therefore it 
was as lawful to shoot him as it 
would be to shoot a man trying to 
steal his cow 


In spite of their self-sufficiency, 
mountain men and women hunger 
for knowledge of the world beyond 
the misty horizon Once on a walk- 
ing trip, mv wife and 1 chanced to 
stop at a cabin where a bright-eyed 
old man was sitting He made us 
welcome, plying us with questions 
W hen he Ic.irncd that mv wife was 
a Oinadian whose ancestors had 
come from EngLind,his face lighted 
“I'vt always wanted to meet a 
Briton,’' he said “All my life I’ve 
wanted to meet a Bnlon “ 

For an hour we talked, then it 
was time ioi us to go 

1 he old man took mv wife’s hand 
and held it w.irmlv His face grew 
wistful “When you git back to 
Ckinada," he said, “I’d mighty like 
It if you’d git all your kinfolk lined 
up and take a picture of ’em, and 
then write their names and ad- 
dresses underneath and send ’em to 
me I’d like to git in correspondence 
with ’em ” 

The native religion in these moun- 
tains has changed little The trivel- 
Ici in some remote region may still 
come upon a foot- washing, con- 
ducted with Biblical simjilicity He 
may still chance to sec a funeraliz- 
ing— a service for the dead that is 
sometimes dclayc'd as much as two 
years by lack of minister or funds 

The family of a man who had 
been killed in an .irgument found a 
satisfactory preacher after months 
o* searching Hut they still needed 
someone to read out the hymns The 
only individual who could read was 



AT HOME IN THE HILLS 


^954 

the man who had done the killing. 
Reluctantly, the family finally asked 
for his help. The services were pro- 
ceeding smoothly when relatives of 
the deceased objected to the tone in 
which the killer was reading The 
funeralizmg halted abruptly, and 
It was onlv the frantic efforts of the 
preacher that prevented new fatali- 
ties 

Despite some modern touches, a 
mountain trial is much the same as 
when I first visited the Cumberlands 
^0 years ago, and court was opened 
with a fiddlers’ contest A court ses- 
sion IS still the great event of the 
>ear The informalitv instanth 
charms the visitor I sat in a moun- 
tain court one afternoon as the 
judge prepared to swear in the 
annual Grand Jury Addressing the 
tobacco-munching farmers arranged 
solemnly before him on a double 
row of chairs, the judge said, “Be- 
fore I swear vou in 1 want to ask— 
h there anybody sitting here that's 
under indictment for anything? I 
don’t want nobody on my jury 
that’s under indictment ” 

There was a long silence Then in 
the back row a lankv farmer rose 
and shifted uneasily “Guess they 
got me up in federal court over at 
Mavsv’ille for moon shining. Judge ’’ 

I’hc judge shook his head in re- 
gret “You got to get off the ( jrand 
Jury then, Jeff i ain’t going to have 
nobody on rny jury that’s under 
indictment ’’ 

The same informality is evident 
in local law enforcement More than 


5 ^ 

once 1 have heard a sheriff ask a 
mountaineer from some distant creek 
to inform a neighbour that he was 
under arrest and tell him to be sure 
to come m as soon as possible And 
the sheriff could be certain the ar- 
rested man would obey 

Mountain gaols have a homely 
quality In one mountain town the 
county gaoler, an amiable soul, took' 
my wife and me on a tour, carefully 
introducing us to each of his 47 
prisoners Wc shook hands with 
them all, including two accused of 
murder In another town we visited, 
a man felt that he had been unjustly 
convicted While still behind bars 
he stood tor the office of gaoler, and 
being dulv elected, took over the 
gaol 

The mountain [lolitician is still 
basicall) like the colourful candidate 
1 met years .igo whose platform was 
“A dog for every man in the moun- 
tains ’’ One candidate in a settle- 
ment 1 visited told his hearers, 
“Everybody knows we don’t need 
no coiintv attorney in this county. 
You vote for me and I’ll make you 
as near none as you ever had ’’ 

There are still vast areas without 
a doctor Babies are still treated for 
thrash — an infection of the throat — 
bv having a man who has never seen 
the father breathe into the sick in- 
fant’s mouth A treatment for fever 
IS to split onions and place them 
undei the patient’s bed The fever 
will pass into the onions, turning 
them black, and the patient is cured.. 

The mountaineer loves his hills 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


5 ^ 

with an intense devotion. He will 
describe to you like a poet the 
charm of the dark range rising be- 
fore his cabin, the pines atop Saddle- 
back, or the green haze over the 
Breaks o’ Sandy. He is lost when 
he is away 

Once on a bus, travelling west 
from Washington, I began talking 
with a middle-aged man from the 
heart of the Cumberlands For years 
he had wanted to see the capital of 
his country, at last he had accumu- 
lated enough money for a week in 
the city. He arrived at the Washing- 
ton station and went into the street 
When he saw no hills anvwhere, 
only a mass of madly driven vehicles 
and close-packed, rushinghumanity. 
a wave or nostalgia swept him 

“I seen this bus waiting outside 
the door.” he told me “The driver 
said it was heading back to the 
mountains. So I give him my ticket 
and went aboard. Fm sure glad I’m 
going home ” 

The names of the creeks and set- 
tlements have extraordinary colour 
Hell for Certain, a rocky creek that 
IS still a trial for horse or mule; Hoop- 
forlary, where a ghost is supposed to 
come flying out from a mountain 
uttering the weird cry 
“Whoop for Larry”; 

Burnt Camp Creek and 
Gobblers Knob. The 
speech itself is beautiful 
in Its simplicity. Not long 
ago I heard a judge remark 
of a girl whose husband he 
had just sentenced “She 


drove her ducks to a bad market.” 

Often when I have wandered 
through the area I have taken a 
mandolin. It has led me into some 
pleasant adventures. 

Some years ago in a little cross- 
roads shop I met Fiddling Jack, the 
bearded musical master of his val- 
ley We talked a while, then he took 
up his violin “Play ‘Fire on the 
Mountain,’ Jack,” called a gaunt 
farmer, and Jack fiddled valiantly. 

“Play ‘Billy Boy,’ ” said the gaunt 
man I could not believe my ears 
The fiddle was again playing “Fire 
on the Mountain ” 

Then Jack looked at my mandolin 
thoughtfully “Let’s you and me 
play a duet, brother,” he said. The 
only piece we both knew was “My 
Old Kentucky Home ” I was trill- 
ing away when I noticed that some- 
thing was wrong. I stopped and lis- 
tened The fiddle was scraping out 
“Fire on the Mountain ” 

The mountaineer has many faults 
He IS quick to take offence, he is 
sometimes violent But his virtues 
far outweigh his sins He is kind, 
honest, and loyal to the death He 
takes no man’s orders and gives or- 
ders to no man. His single aim in 
life is to be free. 

In another generation 
perhaps he will have dis- 
appeared, his only trace a 
headstone on some pinc- 
bordered hill. Yet so long 
as America lasts he will 
live on in spirit. He is one 
of the last pioneers. 




A confini-ntal European said to 
me not long ago “Russia used 
to have the eagle as its emblem 
You Americans have the eagle as 
your emblem We Europeans are 
deafened by the din now made by 
those two eagles screaming at each 
other, exchanging insults and 
threats Overwhelmingly we prefer 
the American eagle But we do wish 
that it would exhibit less emotion 
and more composure, less trucu- 
lence and more of the calm confid- 
ence that befits so great a bird ” 
Similar remarks are reported by 
virtually every U S observer abroad 
We are widely “misliked” and 
called “adolescent” and accused of 
being on our way to plunging the 
world wantonly into another war 
My first impulse in reply is to 
point out the shortcomings of cither 
nations in their oehaviour cowards 
us But I remember the admonition 
in the Gospel “Thou hypocrite, 
first cast out the beam out of thine 
own eye . . ” 


An experienced observer suggests 
five ways his countrymen can get 
on hettei with others 

So here I write about us Ameri- 
cans And I mean all of us 
I have spent much of my life 
among peoples of other countries 
I suggest five wa\s in which we 
could get on with them better, with- 
out hurting ourselves 
First, we could pipe down a bit 
in talking about our own greatness 
and grandeur For instance why 
should Washington spokesmen and 
crossro,ids orators spend so much 
time proclaiming America’s “world 
leadership”"^ Who wants to have a 
neighbour say, “I am )our leader”^ 
It amounts to saying, “You are my 
follower ” Nations don’t like to be 
classified as followers If we must 
lead, let’s not lead so loud. 

And how about taking a holiday 
from telling the world how wonder- 
ful we are because of our washing 

53 



54 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


March 


R J Cruikshank, Editor of the Hews Chrontcle, 
has this to say about “Manners For Americans*’ • 
“This piece is full of William Hard’s deep wis 
dom and good-humoured understanding The onus 
for creating anti-American feelings, though, should 
not be dumped on American shoulders We Britons 
should guard against becoming the unconscious 
dupes of anti -American propaganda which is very 
actively spread by the Communists and their fellow- 
travellers 

“Beware of appearing to patronize Americans 
The Briton docs not inherit a God-givcn right to 
criticize American customs, manners, tastes or poli- 
tical institutions Sheer off such assumptions as that 
all Americans are materialists, interested only in 
‘the almighty dollar,’ while most Britons are 
altruists 

“In conversations with Americans, stick honestly 
to your own point of view — that will be appreciated 
— but be as polite as you would be to any stranger 
you fall into talk with in the tram Don’t assume 
you know them better than they know themselves 
“Anglo-American relations are always improved 
by the sweetening of good manners ’’ 


machines, our deep-freeze units, 
our television sets, our bathrooms? 
What docs one think of a man who 
is always letfmg the town know 
how rich he is? 

Second : We might experiment in 
not talking so tough Why arc wc 
thought to be capable of starting 
another war? It is not our deeds It 
IS our words. We do not need to 
abate our policies. We need only to 
abate our way of expressing them. 

In domestic politics we indulge m 
unrestrained verbal violence. That 
sort of violence does not fit interna^ 
tional politics. Let’s moderate our 
language not only towards our ene- 
mies but towards our allies Many 
U.S.' Congressmen in transatlantic 


tones tell our allies: 
“You do this— or else.'* 
And then we are sur- 
prised that wc arc 
thought to be bullies. 
Let’s remember that m 
international diplom- 
acy It pays to be dip- 
lomatic. 

Point Three : Many 
people abroad think 
we are too boisterous 
and roisterous when 
touring Of course, we 
are not unique in this 
matter. But the real 
point is this : 

In the old days, 
when all Americans 
were thought to be 
rough frontiersmen, 
Europeans were rather 
amused when in their cities we be- 
haved like lumberjacks coming out 
of the woods for a spree. Now, 
though, our country has come to a 
pinnacle of power and prominence, 
and It is foi us to behave witli a 
corresponding dignity Let us heed 
President Eisenhower s recent ad- 
monition * 

“Each of us, whether bearing a 
commission from the Government 
or travelling by himself for pleasure 
or for business, should remember 
that he is a representative of the 
United States of America.” 

That thought should be enough 
to guide us. 

Next notion : Let’s be less nerv- 
ous in our dealings with Commun- 



MANNERS FOR AMERICANS 


55 


^954 

ists and Communist propaganda. I 
would gaol — or, better, execute — all 
Communist conspirators actually 
seeking the violent overthrow of our 
Government But why should any 
of us get jittery when the danger of 
such an overthrow is almost non- 
existent'^ It IS not our anti-Com- 
munism that brings us ridicule from 
abroad It is the feai that some of 
us display of Communism and even 
of reading about (Communism For 
instance 

The State of Texas has a law 
whereby its Board of Education 
cannot purchase any book written 
by a Communist or ex-Omimiinist 
I’his law dcprncs Texas schools of 
some of the best books tner written 
against Communism, such as those 
by cx-Comnuinists Louis Budenz 
and Whittaker Chambers Yet, 
ironically, it leaves encyclopaedias 
still in existence in Texas And every 
major cncvclopcedia contains long 
accr lints of Karl Marx and Nikolai 
Lenin and of Communist economic 
and political philosophy The law 
also leaves newspapers in existence 
in Texas Yet newspapers report the 
Communist propaganda delivered, 
for example, hv Comrade V^ishinskv 
in the United Nations Nothing is 
gained bv banning a hool^ by Vi- 
shinsky so long as his propagandist 
Speeches arc printed on newspaper 
presses all ewer America 

Most Americans realize this Oiii 
friends abroad should observe that 
the American Library Association 
has denounced such bannings and 


has come forward with the admir- 
able principle “The answer to a 
bad book is a good one ” The 
American Bar Association — cer- 
tainly a conservative organization — 
has denounced book-banning and 
has said “Anv fear that oui people 
have become so soft-headed that 
thev have to be protected against 
books IS unfounded ” 

Whereupon it becomes necessary 
to sav a word or two about Senator 
Joseph McCarthy It is widely 
thought abroad that he has put fear 
of ideas into ihe mind and heart of 
cverv American Numerous anti- 
McCarihsiies among us promote 
that impression in a very strange 
wa\ Tht\ open their mouths to 
yell to the world that McC^arthv has 
closed their mouths 

If McCarthv is conducting any 
general war against freedom of non- 
Communist cxpicssion — and I think 
he IS not — he is singularly unsuc- 
cessful 1 note that newspapers as- 
sail him in a vast volume of hostile 
criticism I note that every economic 
and political idea ever advocated in 
the Congress of the United States 
before McCarthy is still advocated 
there I note that left-wing period- 
icals arc still published, unrepentant 
and unabashed And, for chat mat- 
ter, New York’s Communist news- 
paper, the Daily IT still comes 
out punctualK 

Inflated fear of McCarthy is just 
as disgraceful as inflated fear of 
Communist piopaganda. Let’s have 
no fcir of anv philosophy m Aracr- 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


ica, no fear of any man. Wc aren’t 
natively scarcdy-cats. Let’s get over 
this spasm of fearfulness as fast as 
we can. It only gets us laughs. I’d 
rather get brickbats. And, believe 
me, we are surely going to get 
bricks. 

My fifth piece of unsolicited ad- 
vice to my fellow Americans is: 
Get over wanting to be liked 
Suppose we were perfect Suppose 
we never talked loud but only whis- 
pered. Suppose we never talked 
tough but only cooed Suppose we 
never toured abroad except with 
etiquette books in our pockets Sup- 
pose we never showed a shred of 
rear even in the face of a new book 
by Malenkov. We’d still get those 
bricks. WhyJ^ 

Because power and popularity 
never go together. A Briton put it 
to me very well He said 
“When wc British were top-dog, 
everybody spat in our eye Now you 
are going to be top-dog, and every- 
body is going to spit in your eye ” 
This IS an unwelcome prospect 


for Americans. We are, at bottom, a 
Strongly affectionate people. Wc en- 
joy being called by our first name, 
even upon the shortest acquaint- 
ance. We like to do kindnesses and 
expect kindnesses in return Now we 
have to learn the bitter truth of the 
warning given to us in 1796 by that 
great realist, George Washington : 

“There can be no greater error 
than to expect real favours from 
nation to nation.” 

We are too rich, too strong, too 
formidable to be lo\ed Let us pu^ 
love of being loved behind us 

But there is indeed one thing 
abroad which, if wc will, wc can 
gain and keep That is respect Wc 
can gain and keep it by recognizing 
our weaknesses, by healing ourselves^ 
of them and thus transforming them 
into strengths And this, I think, 
we are going to do I confidently 
predict that as we Americans be- 
come more familiar with the world 
we shall strive less to improve it by 
lecturing it and strive more to im- 
prove ourselves bv learning from it 


Modern Inconveniences 

Maxwell of Los Angeles is a man m tune with his 
times. So when his four^ycar-old daughter Melinda acquired a fixa- 
tion for “The Three Little Pigs” and demanded that he read it to 
her night after night Mr Maxwell, very pleased with himself, tape- 
recorded the story When Melinda next asked for it, he simply 
switched on the playback. This worked for a couple of nights, but 
then one evening Melinda pushed the storybook at her father 
“Now, honey,” he said, “you know how to turn on the recorder ” 
“Yes,” said Melinda, “but I can’t sit on its lap.” -Lo« \ngcies r^mes 



She^s §iven flway 10,000 'Babies 

Hy Eleanor Hams 


C oNc.RATULAiioNsf You and 
your husband have just be- 
come the parents of a fine bov He 
was born at four o’clock this morn- 
ing. He /iis eight pounds four 
ounces and has blue eyes like yours 
Come to Fort Worth and get him 
in ten days ” 

Edna Cdadncy has relayed thou- 
sands of telephone messages like this 
to all corners of America During 
the past 43 years she has given out 
for adoption 10,000 children of un- 
wed mothers through the Edna 
Gladney Home in Fort Worth, 
Texas, which she heads Her slogan 
IS ‘‘There is no such thing as an 
illegitimate child — only illegitimate 
parents ” 

A typical unwed mother in the 
Gladney nursing home is about 20 
years old and comes from a respect- 
able middle-class family She learned 
of the maternity hospital from a 
doctor or from an advertisement in 
a newspaper She became pregnant 
by the only man with whom she 
ever had sexual relations She never 
finished secondary school, but the 
father is a secondary school giaduate, 
usually between the ages of 19 and 
24 She had worked as a waitress, 
salesgirl or typist, or was a student, 
he is in military service 


T o babies without fathers, to mothers 
without hii^band^, Edna Gladney 
givti, a better chance in life 

Whv didn’t they marry ^ Because, 
on learning the girl was pregnant, 
the man didn't immediately pro- 
pose When he finallv did, she re- 
sented the fact that he would marry 
only because of her pregnancy 

Each girl receives a false name for 
the duration of her stay She is ad- 
vised to tell none of the other pati- 
ents her real name, job or home 
town I’he story told by the un- 
happy girl to her friends and family 
IS retold meticulously by the nurses 
If she IS pretending to friends that 
she IS working in another city, Mrs 
Gladney borrows the address of a 
Gladne\ foster parent there, who 
carefully re-addresses all letters sent 
to the girl, and who posts the letters 
written by her 

During the three to five months 
that a young rnothei is staying at 
Mrs Gladney's she receives medical 
care, instruction and a great deal of 
understanding help If she wants to 
keep up a course of study, corre- 
spondence courses are provided. 

Five days after the birth of hcr^ 
babv, the mother signs away^ her 

57 


Condensed from Woman’s Home Companion 



THE READER^S DIGEST 


March 


5S 

rights to It, often with tears. Most 
girls write aiTectionate letters to the 
nurses and to Mrs. Gladney for 
many months after they have left 
Fort Worth. Most of them marry 
within a year or two. 

When foster parents — who must 
meet the Home’s common sense 
standards as to age, personality and 
income — come to pick up their 
adopted baby, Mrs Gladney tells 
them the infant’s history, revealing 
no names or geographical locations 
Finallv she instructs them m baby 
care and stresses the necessity of tell- 
ing the child that it is adopted. 

“Never hide this fact from him,” 
she says. “Make the story of his 
adoption a story of love Tell him 
that when you first saw him here 
you loved him on sight Tell him 
that his real parents were forced by 
tragedy to give him up but that they 
loved him very much ” 

For SIX months after a couple 
takes a baby the child may be re- 
turned to the Home by the foster 
parents. It may also be recalled by 
the Gladney Home. But only once, 
out of 10,000 cases, has the Gladney 
office had to demand the return of 
a child because the foster parent 
proved undesirable 

At 66 years of age Edna Gladney 
looks just the opposite of a crusader. 
She is five feet one inch tall and 
weighs 13 stone Above all this 
poundage is a charmingly pretty 
face. For the past five years she has 
been a diabetic, but even so her tre- 
mendous energy enables her to do 


more in a day than several ordinary 
people. In 1941 her life became the 
subject of an award-winning film, 
Blossoms in the Dusty with Greer 
Garson playing the lead. 

Mrs. Gladney’s public career be- 
gan when, in 1910, she was ap- 
pointed a director of the Texas 
Children’s Home and Aid Society, 
a private agency concerned with 
child adoption In 1927 she was 
named superintendent Two years 
later she badgered a millionaire into 
buying an empty old mansion, 
which she turned into a much- 
needed baby home and hospital 
When her husband died suddenly 
in 1935 the directors were able to 
pay her a sufficient salary so that 
she might continue as the Society’s 
head In 1950 the agency changed 
its name to the Edna Gladney 
Home. 

Today Mrs Gladney hovers like 
a friendly mother hen over the 
various units of die Home and over 
the lives of everyone involved She 
also welcomes a continual flow of 
“Gladney babies” in their teens, 
20s and 30s, who come calling on 
her Often a baby she gave odt for 
adoption 35 years ago comes to beg 
in turn for a baby to adopt 

The Edna Gladney Home’s 
board of directors is made up al- 
most entirely of businessmen. Mrs. 
Gladney explains “We have a pre- 
dominantly male board because 
men are much kinder towards un- 
married mothers than women.” 

Mrs. Gladney is continually 



SHE'S GIVEN AWAY 10,000 BABIES 


59 


^954 

wheedling “necessities” out of her 
board members. “She’s a born pan- 
handler,” they all agree affection- 
ately Recently, she wanted a new 
recreation building and laundry 
The board turned her down flat 
Rising m wrath, she faced the as- 
sembled group of successful busi- 
nessmen 

“I ]ust wish that all of voii men 


were pregnant ^ I wish that you had 
to wear barrel-likc clothes over your 
misshapen figures I 'wish that you 
had to live like this for nine long 
months — among strangers Then I 
wish that you had your babies, and 
had to give them up for adoption. 
You’d give me that recreation build- 
ing soon enough 

It is now being built 




Ba7il(tng 

-^N W\SNE, Pl-NNSSl VANIA, wHcH 

the lawn-mowing and leaf-raking 
season ended a year ago, ii year-old 
Skeety Stine, who had his heart set on 
a three-speed English bike, was still 
woefully short of his goal But on the 
first icy afternoon, as he completed 
setting out the furnace ashes for the 
dustman, he watched a car, its wheels 
spinning frantically, trying to get up 
the hill in front of his house That 
gave him an idea, and on December 
23 this ad appeared in the Suburban 
and Wayne Times 

A«;Hrs— n grand Christmas gift for friends 
w-hosc cars get stuck on icy dnveuays 1 Sc u 
bag m North Wayne, 25c elsoAhere Call 
Wavm 2771 

His stock was promptly sold out, 
mostly to jokesters looking for an 
original Christmas gift So on Decem- 
ber 30 he ran this ad 

ASHES — Sorry so many of you we.e »hs8p- 
pointed at Christmas Stockpiles replenished 
Tu(Jc a bag in your own car and be ready for 
icy weather 

Wayne awoke to a determined 
snowstorm on the morning of the 31st, 
and orders came so fast Skeety had to 


on Ashes 

canvass neighbours for ashes The 
next ad read 

ASHfs St\£.n ttstimon.al letters leceived 
from grateful lustomtrs whose tars were not 
stuck on Nev\ \ears Eve 

This produced a telephone order for 
40 bags from a i6-ycar-old living in a 
hilly neighbourhood “There isn’t a 
coal furnace within miles,” he ex- 
plained, “and no one can get his car 
out of his driveway I can sell those 
bags for 50 cents ” Another of Skecty’s 
best customers was a classmate who 
bought up ashes, then on tcy days sold 
them to motorists at the worst hill in 
town 

Finally the business began cutting 
into Skeety’s homework to such an ex- 
tent that nis mother brought it to an 
end with the following — ^not strictly 
accurate — ad 

ASH Bl siNl ss temporarily discontinued 
Vacationing in Florida on p’-ofits Your patron- 
age gratefully appreciated 

By this time, however, Skeety and 
his sister were the proud owners of 
shiny new English bikes 

— Contributed by Cyntlua Flannery 



The Top of the t 



T he North Pole and the Arctic 
used to be a remote end o£ the 
earth. Until recently only a handful 
of explorers had been to the Pole 
A few Eskimos lived in the Arctic 
Otherwise the area was an empty 
void 

Today things are different The 
Arctic is busy and populated Some 
8,000 Americans (4,000 in winter) 
live in that extraordinary city of 
Thule, only 900 miles from the 
Pole.* Other permanent settlements 
are even farther north 
Hundreds of people have been 
over the North Pole More than 
1,000 flights have been made over 
It. The routine flights are chiefly 
for weather observation Tourist 
flights are one of the ways in which 
Thule entertains important visitors. 

The reason for all this is, of 
course, military The Arctic is the 

• See *'A Giant New Air Bale at the Top of 
the World,” The Reader'! Digcit, January. 1953 

60 • 


The Arctic ts not silent and it's not 
lifeless — and you may be seeing it 
sooner than you thint{ 

shortest route by which the Ameri- 
cans and the Russians might bomb 
each other’s cities And if there is 
no atomic war the Arctic will prob- 
ably become even busier and more 
populated — as a crossroads of world 
air traffic If you do a fair amount 
of travelling you may find yourself, 
five years hence, flying over the 
Pole ’and hardly bothering to look 
up from your magazine. In ten 
years you may stop at a comfortable 
hotel in the Arctic and enjoy the 
amazing scenery 

Most of us have misconceptions 
about the Arctic 

We call It an “ocean ” But it is 
about a sixth the size of the Atlan- 
uc. The Canadian explorer Vilhjal- 
mur Stefan sson 30 years ago rightly 



THE TOP OF THE WORLD 


6i 


called It a “mediterranean sea*’ — a 
sea enclosed by land. On its shores 
are the most powerful nations of the 
modern world 

We think of the North Pole as 
the coldest place on earth. But there 
are places in the United States 
where it gets colder. The coldest yet 
recorded in the vicinity of the Pole 
IS 55 degrees below zero It gets as 
cold as that sometimes in Minne- 
sota In Montana 66 below has been 
recorded 

To find real cold you have to go a 
long way south of the North Pole 
The coldest inhabited place on earth 
(so far as wc know) is Oimyakon, a 
town in Siberia 150 miles south of 
the Arctic Circle It has recorded 93 
below Incidentally, it gets hot in 
summer in Oimyakon — sometimes 
100 in the shade 

We think of the Arctic as a land 
of constant snow and ice There’s 
plenty of ice, but annual snowfall in 
the Ben Nevis area is often greater 
Except where high mountains come 
near the sea, the entire Arctic coast 
IS free from snow in summer. Even 
at the Pole it rarely snows in mid- 
summer It rains 

On the west coast of Greenland, 
near the Circle, are many lovely 
meadows There are no trees — al- 
most none anywhere in the Arctic 
— but in July and August there is a 
wealth of shrubs and flowers. These 
meadows are better to look at than 
to walk on. Just under the surface is 
the permafrost The surface water 
can’t drain through It is like walk- 


ing on a saturated sponge. Just right 
for mosquito breeding. In summer 
there arc probably more mosquitoes 
at the Arctic Circle than anywhere 
else in the world. 

The Arctic Sea is deep — two and 
a quarter miles at the Pole It is cov- 
ered with ice floes Along the coasts 
in summer there is a strip of open 
water through which steamers can 
navigate most of the circumference 
of the Arctic In autumn the shore 
waters freeze and navigation ceases 

The Arctic has been depicted as 
silent and lifeless On the contrary. 
It IS apt to be noisy The millions of 
ICC floes, anywhere from the size 
of your hat up to several hundred 
square miles, are in constant mo- 
uon Floe grinds against floe with 
a roar that can be heard for miles. 
When one floe is forced over the 
surface of another there is an car- 
splitting screech 

Nor IS the Arctic lifeless In fact, 
life in some northern waters is more 
abundant than in almost any tropi- 
cal seas, and, as elsewhere, is a pyra- 
mid At the base are plankton and 
other low forms of life Feeding on 
them are billions of shrimps and 
similar organisms, and at the top 
are great beasts like the walrus and 
whale Eating the shrimps, too, arc 
large numbers of seals At the apex 
of that pyramid is the polar bear, 
who lives chiefly on seals and spends 
most of his life on the floating ice 

This abundant life was little 
known up to ^o years ago. When 
Stefansson proposed an expedition 



62 


THE READER^S DIGEST 


March 


far out on the sea of ice, “living off 
the country,” no less an authority 
than Roald Amundsen said it was 
suicidal. Arctic whalers agreed. So 
did the Eskimos, not one of whom 
would accompany Stefansson 

With two Norwegian compan- 
ions, Storker Storkerson and Ole 
Andreasen, he started North from 
Alaska, carrying food for one 
month. In a 700-mile journey they 
spent three months on the ice far 
from land. They lived chiefly on 
seals The meat provided ample 
food and the blubber, fuel Drink- 
ing water was no problem Sea ice, 
when first formed, is bitterly salty 
But It loses Its salt In six months 
melted sea ice is fit to drink In a 
year it cannot be distinguished from 
fresh water Year-old ice was always 
available. 

Thulf, the big air base and 
accompanying town at the north- 
west corner of Greenland, is a real 
northern metropolis Established in 
1951 on a site leased bv the United 
States from Denmark, it is now 90 
per cent completed 

The base is noisy. Big transport 
planes arrive and depart through the 
24 hours. At any hour jet fighters go 
streaking across the sky Down in 
the town it’s noisier. You have to 
watch out for traffic more than you 
do in a big city 

The climate is not so tough as 
you d think In summer there are 
•many days when vou can take off 
your shirt and sun-bathe In winter 


the temperature averages -24°. 

It’s hard at first to get used to 
more than four months of constant 
day and nearly four months of al- 
most constant night But even on a 
moonless night in winter it never 
gets “pitch dark ” There is always 
enough starlight reflected from the 
snow to distinguish objects 100 
yards away 

Another all-year settlement on 
the north coast of Greenland, 540 
miles from the Pole, was maintained 
b\ a party of Danish scientists. They 
set up a comfortable prefabricated 
house, supplied it with electricity 
generated by a windmill and lived 
the year through without hardship 

Other permanent settlements 
nearer the Pole than Thule are the 
five weather stations, maintained 
jointly by the United States and 
Canada They are on the Arctic is- 
lands of Canada and on the north- 
ern tip of (Greenland The principal 
station has a staff of 20 men, the 
others eight each The farthest north 
IS “Alert,” on Ellesmere Island 
about 450 miles from the Pole. 
Since most of the weather of the 
Northern Hemisphere originates in 
the polar region these stations are 
of great importance to military and 
civil aviation. 

A military air base of the first 
importance is “B W 8” (a wartime 
code name), which the U S Air 
Force established at the head of a 
loo-mile-long fiord on the west coast 
of Greenland, just north of the 
Arctic Circle. Being inland, it’s a 



^954 


THE TOP OF THE WORLD 


little colder than Thule. But the sky 
above it is usually clear and there’s 
little snow or wind. In the near 
future It may be a commercial air- 
port even more used than Thule. 

Ir THE West’s side of the Arctic 
Sea IS becoming fairly busy and 
populated, over on the other side 
there is presumed to be even more 
activity No doubt Intelligence 
knows what the Russians are doing 
along the coast of Siberia , a layman 
can only speculate that their Thule 
may be on Rudolf Island, the 
northernmost island of Franz Josef 
Land 

Military plans are not all that 
bring the Russians to the Arctic 
Their northward colonization may 
have been stimulated by the fact 
that in the time of the czars so 
many revolutionary leaders were ex- 
iled to Siberia. They got to know the 
country, to realize its possibilities 

Russian assets in the Arctic and 
sub-Arctic are coal, oil, meat, fur, 
minerals In summer steamers go up 
and down three great rivers the 
Ob, Lena and Yenisei In winter 
these rivers are highways for tractor- 
drawn trains A railway also runs to 
the Arctic coast 

People in the travel business are 
already thinking about trips to the 
Arctic Of all Arctic scenery the 
coasts of Greenland are probably 
the most spectacular Few people 
have ever seen the east coast. But 
all summer ships ply up and down 
the west coast- supply ships for 


Thule and the weather stations, 
Danish passenger sships. Soon there 
may be tourist cruises. 

The air is usually clear. From loo 
miles awav the great snow peaks of 
the west coast begin to rise from the 
sea. Close in, your ship is dwarfed 
by dark headlands towering a sheer 
3,000 feet Now and then through a 
gap in a cliff you get a breath-taking 
glimpse of a vast, swelling hump of 
glittering white The Greenland ice 
cap IS one of the wonders of the 
world Except for a coastal fringe 
ten to 100 miles wide, it covers the 
whole of Greenland, 700,000 square 
miles of It, up to 8,000 feet thick If 
the climate were to change enough 
to melt the ice cap, all the oceans of 
the earth would rise 24 feet Many 
of the world’s greatest seaports 
would be drowned 

The ice cap doesn’t melt now; it 
is constantly being added to by new 
snow But some of it is squeezed 
out through valleys at the edges. 
These are the glaciers One of them, 
jdcobshaven Glacier, moves 60 feet 
a day, and discharges 19 million 
tons of ICC into Disko Bay in the 
form of icebergs Great chunks top- 
ple like falling skyscrapers, causing 
a deafening thunder and throwing 
out mighty waves 

From a ship’s deck in Disko Bay 
one can see hundreds of icebergs 
“calved” by the glacier. They tower 
above you, the visible eighth as big 
as a cathedral, carved in fantastic 
shapes — spires and pinnacles and 
rounded domes. At their water hne 



THE READER’S DIGEST 


64 

the pounding waves have undercut 
them. You peer into lovely blue- 
green caverns 

Full use of the Arctic as an air- 
way will not come unless and until 
there is unrestricted travel between 
North America and the So\ let 
Union But Arctic commercial fly- 
ing won’t have to wait for that 
Scandinavian Airlines Svstem has 
already flown test flights over the 
Arctic from the U S West Coast to 
Copenhagen and Oslo Its applica 
tion for regular passengei service is 
filed with the U S Civil Aeronau- 
tics Board, as are the applications of 
other airlines 

Test flying has shown that Arctic 
air trayel should be even safer than 
the present commercial passenger 
flights across the Atlantic Theoreti- 


cally, flying is safest at the poles 
(and at the equator), where there 
arc clear skies, an absence of fog, 
sleet, icing conditions And if a 
trans-ocean plane has to come 
down, It IS better off on floe ice than 
in the open water of the Atlantic 
Today the Arctic airports — 
Thule, B W 8 — are in about the 
same position that Gander Lake in 
Newfoundland was ten vears ago 
Then Gander was a military air 
base, practicallv unknown to the 
public Today it is a bus\ cross-rouds 
for commercial airlines between 
Europe and North America The 
same thing is likely to happen with 
the Antic airports 
So turn your globe over on its 
side and have a look at the top of 
the world You never know you 
may be there before long 


How*s That Again'^ 

Sign in a Montreal store window “wedding invitations — 
PRINTED in a hurray ” - Toronto Tele)itam 


U S Governmeni employee, classifying his job in a report for 
Washington officials, wrote “I am responsible for maintaining the 
obsolete material as up-to-date is possible ” Tempo 

Lane Bryant, the New York department store, leccived a cdl 
from a customci who asked “Do you carry maternity bridal 

gOWnS^’* —The Woman 

Sign in a launderette “Leave your clothes here, ladies, and 
spend the afternoon having a good time ” 

— Albuquerque, Nc\% Mexico, Tribune 

A METAL PLAQUE on the cFcst of California’s 12-million-ton Shasta 
Dam reads . “U S Government property Do not remove.” 

“ Pathfinder 



everybody’s (^tiquette 

Condensed from a department in This Week 


‘If I Were You . . We all en- 
joy giving advice, and it often takes 
a good deal of self-control not to 
tell our friends how to run their 
lives Hut thev’ll like us better if we 
don’t 

1 Resist the temptation to give 
unasked-for advice If you’re wise, 
vou won’t tell Joe to take his money 
out of Consolidated Bananas and 
invest It in United Pickles, even 
though you’re convinced it would 
be advisable And you’ll let Jose- 
phine hang those burnt-orange cur- 
tains in her newly decorated living- 
room, in spite of the fact that shock- 
ing pink IS obviously a better 
colour 

2 Beware of giving advice you're 
not qualified to give — even though 
you’re asked for it When Tom con- 
sults you about his fibrositis, don’t 
tell him how your Uncle Abner 
used ncat’s-foot oil on his and hasn’t 
had any trouble since When Dick 
says that the roof of his house is sag- 
ging, don’t show him just how to 
prop it up If, after such advice, 
Tom’s shoulder gets worse and 
Dick’s house caves in you’ll have 
a few pangs of conscience 

3. Avoid the most serious tempta 


tion of giving people advice on their 
emotional problems When Jane 
comes to you with her marital 
troubles or Jim tells you a tale of 
woe about his unreasonable boss, 
the only safe thing to do is listen 
sympathetically and say nothing 
Otherwise, in their emotional state 
thev may act on vour advice, but 
when they simmer down they may 
be sorry they did so 

— Dorothy Mnsscy 

Lawyer 

DonH Be a Speech Snob. Good 
manners demand that a person 
never openly notice peculiarities in 
the pronunciation of others When 
someone uses a mistaken pronuncia- 
tion, don’t look startled or disdain- 
ful If someone says “probly” for 
“probably,” or “irrcr^ocable” for 
“irret/ocable,” don’t play judge. 
And if vou must reply to a sentence 
in which such an error has been 
made tr\ to avoid using the same 
word 

All this is not to say that it’s right 
to be careless or slovenly in pro- 
nunciation We should strive to 
clean up our speech by finding out 
what the dictionaries recommend as 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


March 


66 

the best pronunciation. But we need 
not be pngs about it, and we should 
be careful not to hurt the feelings 
of others —Dwight E Watkins 

Profe^ior of Spetch 

Is It Ladylike? Is it proper to talk 
to men passengers when you are 
travelling^ 

My answer to this is, ‘Suit your' 
self.” If you feel up to it, go ahead 
and start talking Don’t be a nui- 
sance, however, if the person you’ve 
chosen to talk to isn’t interested 

Suppose you do strike up an ac- 
quamtance with an attractive man 
on a train Should you let him pay 
for your dinner if he offers?’ 

Your grandmother might sav no, 
but I say go ahead Nine times out 
of ten, all he’ll expect is your com- 
pany and conversation If he gets a 
wolfish gleam in his eye, just go 
back to your scat 

In other words, use the same 
standards you do in judging a man 
you meet at a party or a friend’s 
house, but be a bit more cautious 

—Ethel Merman 

Stage and screen star 

Telephone Manners. Remember 
that the other party to a telephone 
conversation is visualizing you as 
you talk. A clear-cut, well-modu- 
lated voice builds up an attractive 
picture But imagine the impression 
given by grunts, “yeahs,” “mm’s.” 

If you have a tendency to speak 
slowly, try to speed up a bit on the 
tekphonc. Slow speech takes the 


vitality out of the conversation and 
your listener’s mind is apt to wan- 
der On the other hand, if you talk 
too fast, the listener may heai just 
a jumble 

In both social and business calls 
show consideration for the other 
person bv coming to the point at 
once In business this cour ^,sy is 
essential because time is valuable 
It’s best to ask the person called if 
he or she is free to talk, if < ot, when 
may you call back?’ 

When answering the telephone, 
identify \ ourself at once If you ire 
answering for another person, offer 
your own services If that will not 
do, take the message accurately 

Here arc other don'ts jou may 
well keep m mind Don’t put 
through a call and keep the person 
waiting until you are leady to talk 
Don’t shout Don't ring off without 
first saving good-bye, and never 
bang the receiver — K C Ingram 

On Winning and Losing. Early loi 
my career I was a classic example 
of the poor loser I lost the finals of 
a tennis tournament in Philadel- 
phia Back in the locker room, when 
the chairwoman of the tournament 
presented me with the runner up 
medal, 1 hurled it across the room 
with the clarion announcement that 
I didn’t want the thing 

That day I lost more than a 
championship. I lost dignity and the 
respect of others. And I knew it 
well when the chairwoman answered 



^954 

quietly, “You may win every match 
you ever play, Alice, but }Ou will 
never be a champion until you have 
also learned how to lose 

The nicest winners I know have 
establi'^hcd themselves as such by 
just thre** little words “I was 
lucky ” They may be spoken with 
out inner conviction, and observers 
may disagree that luck was a factor 
But the good winner is not speak- 
ing for himself, nor to the audience 
He IS remembering how it feels to 
lose, and what this small offering of 
humility on his part means to the 
person who has just been defeated 
— Alice Marble 

hinmei tennis champion 

Punctuality Is Polite. When in- 
vited to ' Mich or dinner, to tea or to 
any social gathering, some guests will 
arrive persistently, deliberately and 
immo.;Ierately late For the host and 
hostess, changed and ready, await- 
ing their belated guests with every- 


^7 

thing prepared, it is a thoroughly 
harassing experience 
For some guests it is a point of 
principle to try to be the last to 
arrive. What on earth is the reason 
for this extraordinary discourtesy? 
Basically it seems to stem from the 
strange assumption that coming 
early, or on time, is a tacit admis- 
sion of social inferiority “For 
Heaven’s sake, darling, don’t let’s 
be first at the Browns’ tonight!’’ By 
implication only the social insigni- 
ficants, the local nobodies, will be 
lined up on the stroke of 7 30. 

King Louis XVIII of France once 
remarked “Punctuality is the po- 
liteness of kings and the duty of 
gentle people everywhere ’’ 

A pompous aphorism, perhaps, 
but one holding sound advice Why 
not lake it to heart and resolve to 
be polite when our friends and 
neighbours ask us out — through 
being punctual* —A J Cronin 

Author 


EVERYBODY'S ETIQUETTE 


Young Ideas 

ArrtR his teacher told me that my cight-ycar-old son had saved one of 
his classmates from drowning at the school panic, I asked him why he 
hadn’t said anything about it “Ah, gee, Ma,“ he stammered sheepishly, 
“I had to save him [ pushed him in “ — Conmlnjtpd l>y Mrs C Hummerly 

To TEACH our son the value of money and to try to curtail some of his 
unnecessary puichiscs, we got him to keep a detailed account of how he 
spent his allowance One day as he was laboriously writing down his 
accounts, he said, “You know. Mother, since I’ve had to write down 
everything I spend, I really stop and think before I buy something ” I 
was congratulating myself on the lesson he had learned, when he con- 
tinued. “No, I nevei buy anything that’s hard to sjiell*’’ 

— Contributed by Mrs C L llutirc. 



“I Restore to Nature . . . 

Facts About Cremation 




By Kenneth Robb 


N 1792 Colonel Henry 
Laurens, president of 
the U.S. Continental 
Congress, died and was cremated at 
his request on his South Carolina 
plantation. Thirty years later the 
poet Shelley was cremated in Italy 
and his ashes were laid to rest in 
Rome near the grave of his friend 
John Keats. 

So the Western World witnessed 
a revival of the custom of cremation, 
which had been common among the 
ancient Aryans, Greeksand Romans. 
W ith the invention of modern crema- 
tion apparatus by the Italian scien- 
tist Lodovico Brunetti in 1869, the 
practice gained favour. 

In 1952 Great Britain’s 66 crema- 
toria performed more tlian 107,000 
cremations. 

For many people cremation has 
not been just a convenient way of 
disposing of man’s remains, but has 
seemed more fitting, even more 
reverent, than traditional burial. 
The body in its casket is placed in 
an immaculate brick vault and there 
surrounded by heat so clean and in- 


tense that It has been described as 
“light, like the sun.” In 90 minutes 
everything is reduced to its basic 
elements, a process that takes 
nature, unaided, 20 to 30 years. 
Bodily remains consist of a few 
pearly- white bone fragments, weigh- 
ing altogether six to 12 pounds. 

These remains arc scaled in a 
small urn or box, which the family 
may place in a columbarium niche 
or bury in a cemetery plot. Or they 
may scatter the remains on some be- 
loved mountain or valley. Scatter- 
ing IS the most controversial aspect 
of cremation. Cemetery officials tell 
stones of relatives who regret hav- 
ing done It, because now they have 
no consecrated place where they 
'•an come and feel a nearness to the 
deceased. “People forget,” I was 
told, “that a memorial should com- 
fort the living as well as honour the 
dead.” Opponents of scattering say 
that cremated remains arc not ashes 
but bone fragments, not readily ab- 
sorbed in the soil. 

The same services as arc con- 
ducted before earth burials arc fol- 



68 


Condensed from The Amtrtean Mercury 



'7 RESTORE TO NATURE 


lowed in cremation. In a typical 
cremation service, such as I attend- 
ed recently, the bereaved gather in 
a small chapel beautifully decorated 
with palms and ferns. The deceased 
rests in a simple wooden casket, sur- 
rounded by the warm glow of 
masses of flowers After the cus- 
tomary prayers, quiet music and 
comforting words, the casket is 
passed through a door behind a 
screen of ferns into the clean white 
stone vault beyond This is the pic- 
ture, serene and reverent, which the 
family carry away as they depart 

The Roman Catholic Church dis- 
approves of cremation not as dogma 
but in practice Among Orthc^ox 
Jews cremation is rare, but if the 
deceased has insisted on cremation 
rabbis will perform rites 

Believers in a literal resurrection 
sometimes express fear that crema- 
tion might hinder God in collecting 
parts of the body But most theolo- 
gians, including Catholics, protest 
that this denies the omnipotence of 
God It has been asked “If incinera- 
tion of the body precludes resurrec- 
tion, what has become of the blessed 
martyrs who were burned at the 
stake?’’ 

Conventional burial can be a 
financial burden for many families, 
while cremation costs, by compari- 
son, can be modest. And with money 
saved, assistance funds for deserv- 
ing students have been established in 
universities, beds endowed in many 
hospitals, gifts made to churches or 
community welfare centres. 


69 

The cinerary urn, cremation ad- 
vocates argue, provides the nearest 
thing to a permanent resting place. 
In the past 50 years most large cities 
have had to abandon one or more 
cemeteries 

Since World War II the crema- 
tion rate has doubled in Great Brit- 
ain, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland 
and other densely populated areas 
In the last four years every section 
of the United States, except the 
sparsely populated Mountain States, 
recorded a cremation gam 

Anyone contemplating cremation 
should discuss the subject frankly 
with his family The decision can- 
not be made on a purely rational 
basis Emotions — ours and our 
families’ — must be considered. Cre- 
mation represents a break with 
tradition which horrifies some fami- 
lies Once the decision is reached, 
the person preferring cremation 
should make the necessary arrange- 
ments The expressed wish for 
cremation needs to be known 
straight down the line By taking a 
few practical steps, he who makes 
hisown funeral arrangements proves 
himself thoughtful and considerate 
of the bereaved, and at the same 
time guarantees that his wishes will 
be carried out These are the steps: 

1 Through the undertaker of 
his choice, he can familiarize him- 
self with local laws and regulations 
governing cremation. 

2 If the law requires permission 
of the next of km for cremation, he 
can obtain this permission before 



'7 RESTORE TO NATURE 


70 

death and file it with the under- 
taker Though a particular region 
may not have cremation facilities, 
any undertaker can arrange for 
cremation in another city 

In Great Britain, cremation fees 
may be prepaid through the medium 
of The Cremation Society, bv be- 
coming a life member Their mem- 
bership certificate is acceptable at 


any crematorium in the country. 

A friend who has chosen crema- 
tion in the face of prevailing tradi- 
tion recently quoted to me these 
words of Edward Trelawny in his 
funeral eulogy when Shelley was 
cremated 

“I restore to nature, through fire, 
the elements of which this man 
was composed ” 


Unsound Effects 

Tut CROWP noises heard in many American newsreeb ol football 
games are made in Japan It seems that prcxluters don’t make fresh 
sound recordings of big outdoor events, because one crowd noist is much 
like another, except that the Japanese arc the best crowd noise makers 
To avoid the possibility that one strident voice shouting “Banzai might 
be discernible, the sound track is run backwards -\dapt((i from ror Mm Oui\ 

As FAR AS tbe air conditioning engineer is coiucrncd, “dripping” — 
not “gripping” — describes the effect of hair raising melodrama on the 
film-goer Evaporation from an adult is normally one-tenth of a pound of 
moisture per hour, and for a mildly interesting film shown to 1,000 
people the ventilating system has to take sare 100 pounds of moisture 
per hour But during a love scene or a gangster him, the ventilating 
system has to take care of 150 pounds of moisture Archiu aural Record 

Becactse music cannot be used in sound pictures to make the actors 
“give” in a scene, Hollywood stages are sometimes flooded with scent 
It was first used by Director Theodore Reed, who found that Bing Crosby 
and Mary Carlisle reacted best in love scenes when lapped in the odour 
of heliotrope, that Martha Raye’s comedy was aulcd by the spicy cxlour 
of geranium The scent of mint revived the players at about 4pm when 
energies were at a low ebb 

To GET THF sound of an icc pack breaking up for the film E^\tmOy 
tons of ice were dropped on concrete, boxes were smashed with pile- 
drivers, sounds of a motor crash and a train collision were combined, 
none was right Finally the sound department put a teaspoohful of baking 
powder on a glass-topped table near the microphone, pressed it hard with 
a thumb Amplified hundreds of times, it gave the exact effect 




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A unique husband-and-wtje flight 
team on errands of mercy 



By Roger Wtlltam Rtis 


I N THE half-light of early morning 
the telephone rang sharply in the 
little apartment on Long Island, 
New York. Frank Steinman woke 
swiftly. 

“How soon can you leave for 
Labrador?'* demanded the metallic 
voice. 

“What kind of case?" replied 
Steinman, not in the least surprised 
“What do you need? Oxygen? 
We’ll take off from La Guardia 
Field in )ust 30 minutes.” 

So the trim, white mercy plane, 
marked with large green crosses, 
was off on another flight. At Mon- 
treal they picked up such aviation 
maps as there arc of an almost un- 
mapped territory. Then north-east 


till towns and houses ceased, and 
there were not even roads, just lakes 
and hills 

By five that afternoon they 
reached their destination, picked up 
the sick man, and started back. The 
patient rested easily on the soft, 
roomy bed with its two foam-rub- 
ber mattresses. Soon he surprised 
the doctor, as patients often do in 
the Air Ambulance, by dropping 
into a quiet sleep. At five the next 
morning they touched down at La 
Guardia Air Ambulance Service 
had accomplished another mission. 

The victim in this case bad been 
stricken with a heart attack while 
on a fishing trip. His companions 
got word to his home in New York. 


7 ^ 


Condensed from Atr Facts 



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FLYING AMBULANCE 


74 

The round-trip flight was 2,200 
miles. To bring the patient out by 
boat and car, the only other method 
possible, would have taken nearly a 
week instead of a single summer 
night 

The story of Air Ambulance is 
the story of a man and his wife 
and an aeroplane The man is Cap- 
tain Frank Steinman, chief pilot. 
His wife IS Flight Nurse Lisette 
Steinman A licensed pilot as well 
as a registered nurse, she accom- 
panies the Captain on most trips 
The aeroplane is a twin-engined 
transport which has been rebuilt 
into a one-patient hospital with 
oxygen service, traction for shat- 
tered limbs, two resuscitators, a 
regular pharmacy of drugs and in- 
valid equipment In addition to 
pilot, nurse and patient, the plane 
carries a fourth person — a doctor or 
a member of the patient’s family 

A woman shattered her leg while 
ski’ing in Vermont Doctors there 
performed a first operation, but a 
second became necessarv, and it was 
thought best to get her to her home 
But that would mean 400 miles over 
frozen and flooded roads. The an- 
swer was Air Ambulance. 

On a stormy dark winter’s day 
recently, I found Stemman stretched 
out in relaxation. He was a little 
tired, he admitted, the Saturday 
before he had flown to Kansas, and 
on Sunday he had flown back to 
Boston — 1,325 miles — with a pa- 
tient, “fighting the weather all the 
way.” A man had fallen into a big 


industrial conveyer and broken his 
back. His insurance company want- 
ed to get him to special treatment 
in Boston immediately His condi- 
tion was such that he could not be 
moved so far by tram or car. So Air 
Ambulance took over 

The plane has a radio licence em- 
powering it to use in emergencies a 
special frequency which gets instant 
attention at any military or civilian 
airfield 

The big airlines will sell space to 
carry a sick person, but they some- 
times refer queries to Steinman 
Unlike regular airliners, which must 
fly at specified altitudes, Air Am- 
bulance can seek out whatever 
height IS best for the patient 

In other ways, too, its errands 
rank it above ordinary air rules 
Great airliners from London and 
San Francisco may be “stacked up” 
over New York awaiting their turn 
to land, but the control tower gives 
the little white plane clearance over 
all of them on request Army and 
Navy “closed” fields are open to it, 
in Canada as well as the United 
States. 

In Its four years of operation Air 
Ambulance has never made a profit. 
The Steinmans deliberately keep 
their charges low — no more than 
the cost of an ordinary charter plane 
with pilot, and less than most motor 
ambulances charge And they con- 
stantly discover new ways to put 
more money into the plane “That 
big white bird lives high,” says 
Lisette Steinman. 





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76 


THE READER^S DIGEST 


Steinman helps to balance their 
modest budget — and keep Air Am- 
bulance flying — by free-lance pilot- 
ing With 22 years of flying behind 
him, as pilot and instructor, he is in 
demand when there is a difficult 
ferrying job to be done 

When you talk with Steinman 
about Air Ambulance you realize 
that, although he would like to sec 
the white plane earn its way, he and 
his wife get paid for their labours 
in a different kind of com 
One night, just as he was readv 
for bed, the Captain heard a 
strained voice over the telephone 
“Can you pick up a patient at At- 
lantic City right awav and fly her 


to Memphis? She is my 8o-ycar-old 
mother. She is dying and she wants 
to be home. There is very little 
time “ 

“It was a solemn flight,” recalls 
Steinman. “All the stars of heaven 
were out that soft summer night 
Ground fog hid the world under 
waves like a still ocean In the dark- 
ened cabin the doctor held the old 
lady’s pulse, while in the co-pilot’s 
seat the son read aloud prayer after 
prayer ” 

She stood the flight well Four 
generations of her kin met her at 
the airport 

“That sort of thing makes a man 
feel worth while,” says Steinman. 


EyC'Opcners 

The chimes of Big Ben arc heard m Australia, 1^,000 miles from 
London, before they arc heard in the street below Transmitted by the 
BBC, the sound of the chimes goes out at the speed of light — 186,000 
miles per second — and reaches Australia in less time than it takes the 
sound to travel unassisted from the tower to the ground 

— Contributed by Sydney Hurren 

A MODERN heavy bomber holds enough fuel to drive a motor car round 
the world 16 times —Atlanta Constitution 

In Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston, TV sets now out- 
number home telephones, in Chicago, they outnumber bathtubs, too 

— Time 

Atoms are so small that if a drop of water were magnified to the size 
of the earth the atoms in the drop would be smaller than oranges 

— ^Wilham Laurence. The Hell Bomb (Hollis Sr Carter) 

No ROBOT could come even close to duplicating the human brain A 
machine even remotely like it would have to be about the size of the 
Houses of Parliament, and it would take several lifetimes to wire it up. 
The electrical power requirements would be about equal to the power 
used now to supply the greater part of London And the necessary cool- 
ing system would be so enormous that you’d probably have to divert the 
.Thames to supply it —Dr Norbert Wiener 



It Pavs to Inerem Your Power 

By Wilfred Funk 

By itself, wide reading does not necessarily build your vocabulary You can, 
however, add importantly to your word supply by linking these tests with your 
reading . the word you become familiar with here today may appear in your book 
or newspaper tomorrow Before you begin this test write down definitions of 
those words you think you know Then check the printed definitions which you 
believe tome nearest to the key words. Answers are on the next page 


(1) UNSEEMiY (un seem' li) — A* tmproper 
B tmpracttcal C unskilful D unreal 

(2) AERIE (a' ri) — A weird and ghostly. B 
grace and charm C a lofty nest D wtndy 

(3) ESThLM (cs teem") — A to boast B to 
consider C to flatter D to hope for 

(4) CONVOLUTIONS (con v6 loo' shunz) — 
A reversals of optmon B uprisings or 
revolts C involved turns or folds D violent 
eruptions 

(5) LIAISON (lee ay' zon) — A , a be B a con- 
spiracy C a weakening D a linking up 

(6j GELID (jcl' id) — A ice-cold B soft and 
pulpy C* hard-hearted D sterile 

(7) SALACIOUS (sa lay' shus) — A gree^ 
B good-tasting C . tbirst-quenching D 
obscene 

(8) CONVIVIALITY (con viv 1 al' i ti) — K 
foolishness B good fellowship C super- 
ficiality D intensity 

(9) REMUNERATE (re mu' nur ate) — K' 
advise B pay C* flatter. lY meditate 

(10) COMMENDATORY (c6 mcn' duh t6 ri) 
— ^A; powerful. B. authoritative. C’ ex- 
pressing praise D , explanatory 

(11) EXIGENCE (ex' i jcnce) — A: difficulty. 
B: strength, C: a blunder. D* pressing 
necessity. 


(12) BOMBAST (bom' bast) — ^A: an attack 
B an explosion C extravagant language 
D destruction 

(13) SIMPER (sim' pur) — A laugh B cry 
softly C smile tn a s*lty wey D to be in 
an early state of acute agitation 

(14) CONSTITUENT (con stit' u cnt) — A: 
serving to form a necessary part B. strong 
C‘ an agyeeptent to an obligation D con- 
servative 

(15) COMPILATION (com pi lay' shun) — A* 
continued thought B peace and qutet C 
a collection of material from various docu- 
ments or sources D a great h-ap 

(16) F^rciTATioNS (fc Its i tay' shunz) — 
A empty flatteries B well-wtshings. C: 
fusty details D deceits. 

(17) ENUNCIATE (d nun' si ate) — A to 
censure publicly B to state formally C: to 
emphasise D to promote to a higher office 

(18) HOARY (horc' i) — A ^‘ey with agg B 
coarse C covered with frost D dishevelled 

(19) BEETLING (bec' thng) — ^A projecting 
B frowning C swollen D in deep thought 

(20) SUSTENANCE (sus' ti nuncc) — A. sUib- 
bom adherence to a purpose B . moral support 
or encouragement, C nourishment. D : 
opportunity. 


77 



Answers to 

"IT PAYS TO INCREASE 
YOUR WORD POWER" 

(1) UNShtMLY — A Improper, unbecoming, 
indecent, as, “The way they argued in 
public was both unpleasant and un- 
seemly ” Vr^-^ “not,** and Old Norse 
samilii^y from samr^ “tit ’* 

(2) ALRiE — C From the French word 
mre^ meaning the nest of a bird of prey 
on a high crag Hence, anv shelter 
perched on a height, is, “ The boys had 
built themseKe> an aerte in a large oak 
tree ” 

(3) ESTEEM — B To value, to think highly 
of, also, to consider, to form an esti- 
mate, as, “1 esteem it a privilege “ From 
the Latin asUmare^ “to estimate 

(4) CONVOLUTIONS — C The Latin lon- 
volutns, from con-^ “together,” and 
volvare, “to turn” or “<-0 roll ” 1 lence, in- 
volved turns, folds or ridges, as “the 
convolutions of the human brain ” 

(5) LIAISON — D A linking up, a bond or 
union, unitv (jf action between distant 
parties, as “a close hanon between al- 
lies ’* Also, illicit intimacy between a 
man and a woman From the Latin 
Itgare, “to bind ” 

(6) GLLiD —A ’T’he Latin sehdus and the 
English gelid both mean ice-cold, as, 
“After skating, our feet were gelid** 

(7) SALACIOUS — D Having a strong ten- 
dency towards lust Hence, lustful, 
obscene, as “a salacious play ” From the 
Latin salax^ “lustful ” 

(8) CONVIVIALITY — B Latin convtvialis, “re- 
lating to a feast ” Hence, good fellow- 
ship, festive sociability, as, “A spint 
of conviviality prevailed ” 

(9) REMUNERATE — B To pay, recompense 
or reward for ®ervicc rendered, as, 
“They decided to remunerate him hand- 
somely ” The Latin remuneratus, from re, 
“again,” and munus, “gift ” 

(1 0) coMMi NDATOR\ — C . Expressing praise 
or approbation, putting a favourable 
opinion into words , as, “ I he speech, on 

7 ? 


the whole, was commendatory '* From the 
I^atin commendare, “to entrust.” 

(11) EXIGENCE — D* Pressing necessity, 
urgent need or demand, as, “We agreed 
not to remain longer than exigence re- 
quired ” The Latin exigens, from exigere, 
“to exact ” 

(12) BOMBAST — C Extravagant language, 
especially on an unimportant subject, 
as, “He was full of bombait and biagga- 
docio ” From the Late Latin boniba-K, 
“cotton,” used for padding or inflating 

(13) siMPi R — C A word of uncertain 
origin that means to smile or smirk in a 
silly, sclf-conscious way 

(14) coNsiiii’LNT — A Serving to form 
or compose a necessary part, constitut- 
ing, as, “Sodium and chlorine are the 
comtituent dements of salt ” The Latin 
constituo, from ion-, “together,” and 
statuere, “to place ” 

(15) (OMPiiAiioN -C A book or collec- 
tion of u^itcrial from other documents or 
sources I rom the Latin icmpilare, “to 
gather together ” 

(16) niicirAnoNS — B Wcll-wishings , 

congratulations, wishes for happiness, 
as, “The bride received felicitations ” 
From the Latin felix, “happy ” 

(17) ENUNCIATE — B lo State formally 

and exactly, announce, declare, as, “It 
was the minister’s intention to enunciate 
the policy of his government ” From 
the Latin ex, “out,” and nuntiur, “mes- 
senger ” 

(18) HOARY — A Grey or white, as fiom 
age, as, “His hoary locks reminded us of 
the prophets of old ” 

(19) BEETLING — A Projecting, overhang- 
ing, jutting, as “his heavy brow, square, 
forbidding, beetling ” From Middle 
English bitel, “beetlelike ” 

(2U) SUSTENANCE — C Nourishment, food, 
as, “Art is sustenance without which the 
spirit cannot live ” From the Latin 
sustinere, "to uphold.” 

Vocabulafy '^tmgs 

2G-18 correct . excellent 

17-15 correct . . good 

14-12 correct fair 



The Death 
of Assassino 



Bv Sasha Siemel 


J OSE Ramos was an outpost rider 
for a big cattle ranch m the 
Matto Grosso jungle of Brazil. 
He lived with his wife on a small 
ranch ten miles up river from my 
camp. Jose watched the herds of the 
big ranch, and also ran his own 
small herd One day he appeared at 
my camp 

“You must come with your 
dogN!” he said. “Assassino has be- 
gun raiding again and has killed 12 
of my cattle f “ 

The name Assassino was well 
known in the region. Several years 
before this enormous tigre — as the 
jaguar is called in South America — 
had been wounded bv a hunter who 


S^SH\ Siemel, a LatMnn by birth, has spent 
most of his life in the Brazilian jungle ?s an 
explorer, guide and hunter Emulating the 
local Indians, he became expcit with bow and 
arrowand the native spear in hunting jaguars, 
and has killed nearly 300 of them The story 
he tells here is from his book Ttgrero 

Condensed 


How a man-billing jaguar's reign 

of terror was brought to an end 

shot too hastily while the jaguar was 
in a tree The infuriated animal 
had bounded down and the hunter 
had fled, leaving his dogs to the 
mercy of the big jaguar, which 
destroved them. 

Thereafter, apparently through 
some jungle cunning, the jaguar 
understood that a hunter with a rifle 
could not kill him in the tall grass. 
He was never again seen in a tree, 
but would rove through the marsh 
grass, killing cattle wantonly. His 
experience had left him with a 
deadly hatred of dogs He learned 
to draw them in pursuit through 
the grass, then circle and crouch be- 
side his own trail, springing at them 
as they ran by. One sweep of his 
razor claws would destroy a dog, 
and then the jaguar would lope on, 

/rom Li/tf 



THE DEATH OF ASSASSINO 


8o 

repeating the mancEuvre on each 
dog that followed. It was this trick 
of ambushing pursuers that gave 
Assassino his name. 

Jose had no trained dogs capable 
of tracking Assassino and bringing 
him to bay. Unfortunately, I had 
recently lost my lead dog. 

“I am sorry, Jose,” I said. “I 
can’t nsk the dogs I have left against 
that devil. He will kill them as fast 
as I send them after him ” 

“In that case, ’ he said quietly, “I 
shall go after Assassino myself — 
without dogs. I must kill the devil 
or he will ruin me.” He rode off to- 
wards his ranch. 

A few days later I saw vultures 
circling in the still, hot air west of 
the river. I leashed Raivoso, Pardo 
and Vinte, three of my best dogs, 
and started across the marshes 
Within a short time the dogs found 
the kill, a small marsh deer. The 
dogs went on and I followed. Soon 
we found a second kill, and then 
two more 

Suddenly I heard Raivoso’s deep 
bay, and knew from the sound that 
he was on the track of Assassino I 
collared the other dogs, and this 
probably saved them from destruc- 
tion. It was useless to follow Raivoso 
through the marsh grass A staccato 
of sharp yaps ending on a shrill, 
screaming note tuld the story he 
had caught up with the tigre and 
had been ’tilled in ambush. I knew 
I must hunt this killer. 

Back in my camp that night I 
thought out a plan. I would use the 


dogs to pick up the trail and bring 
me within a reasonable distance of 
the jaguar. Then I would leave the 
dogs on leash and follow the spoor 
alone, hoping to find Assassino in 
an open area where 1 could kill him 
with a shot or an arrow. To do this 
I needed someone to watch the dogs. 
I decided to ride to Jose’s ranch the 
next day. 

But the following morning little 
Tupi, still a puppy, set up a yapping 
and, as I looked down the river 
trail, I saw Maria, Jose’s wife, rid- 
ing towards my camp at a gallop 
As she pulled up the horse I saw that 
the animal’s flank had two gashes 
which had bled freely, and there 
was blood on the wooden saddle. 

Maria’s eyes were wide with ter- 
ror. “Senhor Siemel, Jose went after 
Assassino — and only the horse came 
back?” 

I saddled my horse and coupled 
Pardo, Vinte and Leao, my best re- 
maining dogs, to the leash. As I 
started away, the pup Tupi set up 
a great yapping, and I tied him to 
the corner of the hut Then Ma'-ia 
and I rode off to pick up her hus- 
band’s trail into the jungle. 

I spotted vultures ending ahead, 
and when we broke through a patch 
of underbrush into a burned-over 
area where the grass was short I saw 
a man lying on the ground. His 
body had been badly mangled. It 
was Jose. 

I heard a small cry behind me 
and turned to see Maria slipping 
from her horse. I ran over and 



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(The Liabihcy of the Members of the Company is Limned ) 


82 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


March 


caught her. She recovered quickly 
and after a minute or two agreed to 
ride back to her ranch. 

Then I planned my campaign. 
Assassino had attacked a man on a 
horse once, he would do it again I 
could not use a spear while in the 
saddle, so I tied my horse to a tree 
in a clearing I took my spear, my 
bow and a couple of arrows 1 had 
a pistol m my holster but no rifle, 
which would have been useless in 
the high grass In any case, I would 
never count on a bullet to stop a 
charging jaguar 

My plan was to unleash the dogs 
and follow as fast as I could on toot 
If I could stay close enough 1 could 
forc^ Assassino to attack me With 
the bow in one hand and the spear 
in the other I started after the dogs, 
running low through the grass 

In perhaps ten minutes I heard 
Pardo baying in the lead Then there 
was a shrill scream When I reached 
the spot Pardo was on the ground, 
his side ripped open. I did not stop, 
hoping to overtake the other dogs, 
but a second scream told me that 
the murderer had made another kill 

I had run perhaps a quarter of a 
mile Since the first dog was killed 
when I found the last, Leao, lying 
near the edge of a clearing I stood 
for a moment, sick with rage, not 
knowing what to do next Suddenly 
there was a yapping in the grass be- 
hind me and out bounded Tupi, 
barking joyously. He had chewed 
his rope tether and followed me. 

At that moment I heard a rust- 


ling in the heavy grass across the 
clearing. I had dropped my spear 
when I stepped forward to catch 
Tupi. I dared not use my revolver, 
since Assassino was already gun- 
shy and the noise would probably 
frighten him into flight I fitted an 
arrow to my bow and, as soon as I 
saw a movement, let fly The arrow 
apparently struck something, but 
how damaging the shot was I did 
not know 1 was relying on Tupi’s 
barking to bring the beast in my 
direction Now there was a commo- 
tion in the grass, and although it 
was so dense that I could not see 
five feet through it, I felt sure of 
my target. I took aim with the re- 
maining arrow and shot again. 

Suddenly a long, yellowish shape 
broke from the grass and streaked 
across the clearing Assassino, in pain 
from an arrow tfirough his shoulder, 
had reverted to instinct and was 
running for the refuge of a tree. 

He saw me as he neared the tree 
and swerved towards me I picked 
up my spear and was now ready to 
lure the jaguar into a charge. 

The open area in which Assassino 
and I faced each other was about 30 
yards across Assassino was weaving 
back and forth, every so often shak- 
ing his head and letting out a snarl. 
I edged towards him so that he 
would charge me As I moved closer 
my ears caught the whir of a vulture 
apparently alighting on a nearby 
tree. This diverted my attention, 
and the wily Assassino chose that 
instant to charge. 



THE DEATH OF ASSASSINO 


^954 

I missed being killed by a single 
step. As the jaguar lunged I man- 
aged to pivot and drive the spear at 
his neck The spear did not bite 
deeply, but the thrust was enough 
to throw him off balance He was 
sideways to me now, his head 
turned, white teeth flashing, but he 
did not charge I could not attack, 
since I would not have the strength 
to drive the spear home I kicked 
earth at the brute but this had no 
effect Then, while I was desper- 
ately casting about for some way of 
provoking a charge, he gave a snarl- 
ing roar and leaped straight at me 

I barely had time to lift the point 
of my spear I could feel the hot 
breath against my face and arms as 
the spearhead drove into his throat 
high ovei the chest With every 
ounce of strength I had, I rammed 
the blade in deeper. Any other 
jaguar I had fought would have had 
the life drained away by this com- 


^3 

bination of wounds, but Assassmo 
clawed furiously, even after I had 
got a downward thrust on the spear- 
head and was literally driving the 
point into the ground. Then Assas- 
sino went limp, his great, slashing 
claws stilled for ever 

For a minute I rested on my spear, 
too exhausted to draw it out of the 
bloody carcass. Tupi, who had re- 
tired to the edge of the clearing 
while the battle raged, now came 
dancing madly about as if to claim 
the kill, an honour I was quite glad 
to concede 

Later, after I had taken the man- 
gled remains of Jose to his home 
and arranged for the grief- stricken 
Maria and her child to be taken to 
the big ranch, I returned to the scene 
of the battle 1 measured Assassino’s 
carcass He was ii2 inches from 
nose to tip — almost ten feet ^ I could 
only estimate his weight, but it must 
have been close on 400 pounds. 



Touche 

A U S Army Officers’ Club, the conversation had turned to religion. 
“I was raised on scientific method,” asserted a major, who was an avowed 
agnostic, “and no one has ever been able to prove to me scientifically that 
God exists ” As he swept the group with a challenging glance, he saw 
with some discomfort that they had been quietly joined by the chaplain. 
The major started to apologize 

“It’s quite all right,” the chaplain reassured him “As a matter of fact, 
I was interested in your argument because it is so close to a problem of 
my own As you know, I was raised on theological method, and no one 
has ever been able to prove to me theologically that an atom exists.” 

“But whoever heard of finding an atom by theology?” the major pro- 
tested. 

“Exactly,” agreed the chaplain 


— Contributed by Major Joseph Feinberg 




the ^*’'***’ 'dentif* 

First Pan,-! ”*'fies 

the air C 


JBI., “HI 

,*”«« fc'*' ;"* 

/jas /ja J /aimiy of a, ? 

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, more t,„, '"ore cornf 


as a/l 


other 


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Soviet policy is to move into wea\ spots. 

A distinguished American soldier argues powerfully for a 
low-cost defence plan that will meet this threat 


25 Divisions 


FOR THE Cost of One 


By 


General James A 


Van Fleet 


A merica lacks both the man- 
power and the money to 
hold Communism in check 
in Asia if she persists in her past 
policy of trying to do the job with 
American men 

Consider the task Soviet policy 
is to move swiftly into weak spots 
The free world’s frontier with Rus- 
sia stretches from Korea to Turkey, 
and Its weak spots can be plugged 
only with trained troops. How 
many are needed ? Who can supply 
them? During a recent world tour 
I inspected a few of these soft spots, 
and I believe I returned with some 
answers. 

In Korea we have achieved a 


For 22 months before his retirement in 
March 1953 General James A. Van Fleet 
fought brilliantly as commander of the U.S. 
Eighth Army in Kor'^ Before that, as mili- 
tary adviser to the Greek Government in 
1048-50, he conducted operauons which 
cleared from Greece a Communist guerrilla 
army that had been within a hair*s breadth 
of taking over. General Van Fleet recently 
completed a round -the-woi Id survey trip 


cease-fire But negotiations may 
drag on for months — even years — 
during which at least 25 divisions 
must man the ridges Yet this cease- 
fire frees Communist power for 
further marauding. Will the Com- 
munists mass divisions to attack 
Indo-China? Formosa? Burma? In- 
dia? Persia? Turkey? 

We may estimate conservatively 
that, in order to save Asia, it might 
take 100 well-trained and well- 
equipped divisions. Who can pro- 
vide them ? If America tried to dam 
this vast chasm with her divisions, 
as she plugged the little hole in 
Korea, it would take almost two 
million men and would cost 25 
thousand million dollars per year. 

Fantastic, of course. But how 
else can Asia be saved ? 

The answer we found in Korea; 
Asia (as President Eisenhower has 
said) can and should be saved by 
Asians. And helping Asia keep her 
OWL freedom would strip the Cpm- 

85 



86 


25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


munists of their powerful argument 
that this IS no real war for freedom 
but only a white man’s “imperial- 
ist” war to put Asia in chains. 

What will Asia need in this task ^ 
When I first landed in Korea in 
April of 1951 it had been true that, 
whenever a Korean division was 
assigned a pivotal place in the- 
battle line, the next Red break- 
through was generally in that 
sector. 

Remember, however, that when 
U.S. troops pulled out of Korea in 
1949 the scantily trained native 
army of 96,000 left behind was far 
smaller than the huge, well drilled 
force which the Soviets had built up 
in North Korea And this South 
Korean Army was smashed in the 
war’s opening weeks. 

Syngman Rhee, desperately re- 
building his forces, hauled in even 
traffic police for officers, and pulled 
boys out of nee paddies to fill the 
ranks. South Korea had no officers’ 
schools or training centres Often, 
after only a few days’ sketchy drill 
and five minutes spent learning 
how to shoot a gun, boys were put 
into the line No wonder that, under 
the pressure of Red veterans, they 
broke and scattered. 

I now applied a lesson learned 
four years before in Greece. There 
we instituted an American train- 
ing programme and within a year, 
using only ten divisions with mod- 
est equipment, the Greeks dug the 
Communists out of every cave. 

Why not try the same plan in 


Korea ? ROK divisions were pulled 
out of the line two at a time and 
given a complete re-do — three 
months of tough training, in even 
suffer doses than recruits get in the 
United States For instructors I used 
crack N C O s from other divisions. 

In this way we found we could 
double our Korean Army every ten 
months — Korea's manpower being 
the onlj limiting factor When the 
ten original divisions were retrained, 
we could then send them trained 
replacements 

We set up a special training centre 
near Kwang-Ju for badly needed 
technicians, N C O s and junior 
battle leaders Look closclv at this 
school We will need halt a dozen 
like It, in Asian countries anxious to 
fight for their freedom it we will 
only show them how 

In rough, prefab buildings we 
opened courses to train squad lead- 
ers in moitars, armour, artillery, 
machine guns, signals, intelligence, 
vehicle maintenance and army avi- 
ation We also trained junior battle 
leaders up to and including battalion 
commanders 

We got many pleasant surprises 
We discovered that Orientals apply 
themselves intensely — tell them 
something once, and they have it. 
They have photographic eyes for 
blackboard or field demonstrations. 
We found many bo)s who were 
brilliant but illiterate. We made 
them spend two hours each night 
learning to read; in six weeks they 
were writing home. 



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25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


88 

Korea is now intensely proud of 
this little school. The lesson is that 
free Asia may easily be saved if our 
worthy allies arc given such schools. 
With the aid of two dozen instruc- 
tors and advisers, each can give 
courses lasting from four to 24 
weeks to 10,000 eager pupils in those 
arts of war which arc the backbone 
of a modern army. “We don’t want 
your blood in Korea*” Syngman 
Rhcc had told me “Only give us 
the training and the arms ” And he 
was right 

A TRAINED native division of 
14,500 men IS equal in fighting 
power to an American division of 
18,000 men — and at 1/25 the cost 
per year. Why ^ Because Americans 
insist (I would not change it) that 
the GI should take with him to Asia 
his American standard of living 

We drag along his home-town 
drugstore, with its candy bars, ciga- 
rettes, toilet articles. Every division 
must have its ice-cream plant It 
IS lavishly supplied with sleeping 
bags, stoves, heating elements, fuel 
oil or charcoal, and the world’s most 
tastily varied rations including beef, 
pork, chicken, turkey, milk, eggs, 
sometimes hydroponic vegetables, 
and many refrigerated items. At the 
source the ratirms cost 8 s per 
man per day. By the time they arc 
delivered in Korea, including theft 
and spillage, the cost rises close to 
35 ^* 

The South Korean ration costs 
only 2/. 8 d, a day because it is 


mostly rice, with local vegetables 
for vitamins, and meat hardly twice 
a week. In clothing, a Korean sol- 
dier considers himself lucky to get 
two cheap, home-made uniforms a 
year, while we often allow the GI a 
new outfit (far more expensive) 
every 90 days In pay, the lowliest 
combat GI gets ^(^47 13^. /^d, a 
month, while the Korean considers 
himself fortunate to get a shilling. 
When his outfit is on the move, the 
GI expects to be hauled in a truck, 
while a Korean assumes he will 
walk, as he has done all his life. 

No wonder it takes 600 tons of 
transport a day to supply an Ameri- 
can division, while a Korean divi- 
sion needs only 100 tons These ex- 
cess American trucks which the 
American living standard demands 
mean more manpower taken from 
the trigger-pullers and tied up in 
drivers, mechanics and engineers to 
build or repair roads. 

Because most Korean soldiers 
carry rifles, a Korean division of 
14,500 men has the same fire-power 
potential as the 18,000-man Ameri- 
can outfit. 

An American division is luxuri- 
ously upholstered with six tank 
companies. An Asiatic division can 
get along without even one. Tanks 
arc staggeringly costly and also need 
many highly skilled maintenance 
crews. In Asiatic fighting they arc 
often useless because of mountain- 
ous or marshy terrain. The typical 
Asiatic division can also use, instead 
of heavy artillery, plenty of mortars 






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25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


90 

— cheap to make and easy to 
move. 

Each division of Asiatics will 
need a few advisers skilled in logis- 
tics and tactics But basic responsi- 
bility should always be borne by the 
native leaders We found this out in 
Korea at some cost When the war 
opened. President S^ngman Rhee 
presented General MacArthur with 
the Korean Army 

“Take it,” he said in effect, “to 
use as you will It is yours ” 

It was a generous gesture, which 
the Americans accepted B.ut came 
April 1951, when the Sixth Korean 
Division, overrun bv the Chinese 
Reds, continued to fall back and re- 
treat, abandoning great quantities 
of equipment My staff officers 
urged me to disband the Korean 
Sixth as worthless. 

Instead I gathered its stragglers, 
reissued them precious equipment 
and then presented Syngman Rhec 
with what was probabK the most 
blistering letter ever delivered by 
a soldier to the head of a friendly 
state. I told him bluntly that what 
his army needed was competent 
leadership. “They do not have it,” 
I said, “as is clearly evidenced by 
repeated battle failures.” 

I then gave Syngman Rhee back 
his army by pointing out that secur- 
ing good Korean leadership w^as not 
my task, but was “the chief respon- 
sibility of the President of the Re- 
public,” 

President Rhec accepted full rc- 
sponsibihty. From that day on, the 


ROK Army owed their allegiance 
to Its own people and country — as 
it should — and not co the U.S. 
Eighth Army. 

How the Koreans solved their 
problem I don’t know There were, 
of course, courts-martial wholesale. 
We even heard rumours that com- 
manders shot subordinates guilty of 
cowardice or gross negligence. 

But I do know that the United 
Nations should be proud of their 
ally Syngman Rhee for the results 
he got For when his officers and 
men realized that they were a 
Korean Army, under a Korean 
chain of command, fighting for 
Korea, with blame for failure and 
credit for success on their own 
shoulders, they were suddenly trans- 
formed into soldiers. When the 
Korean Sixth went back into the 
line, it fought like a commando 
team of tigers to redeem Korean 
honour and restore Korean “face.” 
After that I never had a better, 
more dependable division in all of 
my command 

This preparedness programme 
which could save Asia, then, starts 
with a training school like the one 
at Kwang-ju, which can tram 
enough technicians and junior 
battle leaders to staff ten Asiatic 
divisions per year. In fighting power 
each is as effective as an American 
division But a thousand million 
dollars will train and support 100 of 
them, whereas that sum would pay 
the overseas combat costs of only 
four American divisions. 





cx 


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to put the sparkle back into hfe 





25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


93 

If we examine closely these rug- 
ged, lew-cost divisions, hand-tooled 
so that Asiatics may keep Asia free, 
we see many similarities to those 
Japanese divisions which, in 19419 
pattered down the Malay Peninsula 
in sandal-clad feet, and overran all 
of South-east Asia Surely the West, 
which smarted under defeat from 
these lightly equipped, efficient 
armies, cannot argue that such 
methods are not effective. 

Let us apply the preparedness- 
package formula to various danger 
spots around the rim of Asia. In 
Formosa much of it is already at 
work. Here $300,000,000 (;{^io5,- 
000,000) in American aid to Chiang 
Kai-shek — only a little more than 
the cost of one American division 
per year — has produced 21 anti- 
Communist Chinese divisions, plus 
two air groups, with money left 
over for economic aid. 

When the Korean War began, 
Chiang offered the United Nations 
his army. Had it been accepted, 
America might not have needed to 
bring a single ground division from 
the States. My unfulfilled hope, later 
in the war, was to bring Chiang’s 
divisions to Korea, three at a time, 
to give them battle training in 
rotation. 

Chiang’s Chinese divisions would 
have brought us another combat ad- 
vantage, tor blood calls to blood. 
While I commanded in Korea, thou- 
sands upon thousands of our “Red” 

nn<nnpr« mp “nptitinn^ 


in blood.” Their plea was always 
the same: “Give us arms to fight 
by your side. If not this, then send 
us to Formosa, so that some day we 
mav, under Chiang, free our coun- 
try 1“ 

Chiang’s experts, on my recent 
visit to Formosa, convinced me 
that, had we taken Chiang’s prof- 
fered troops, the “Reds” would 
have come over to us wholesale An 
Oriental soldier who surrenders is 
in deep disgrace. But a Chinese 
who leaves the Hammer and Sickle 
to )oin the Free Chinese loses no 
“fare.” He remains, in the code of 
the East, an honourable soldier. 

Even today Chiang and his small 
army pose a real threat to Peking. 
Were Ghiang, taking advantage of 
some quick chance, to slide even 
15 of his 21 Free Chinese divisions 
ashore in the populous south (per- 
haps neai the Indo-Chinese fight- 
ing), Peking knows far better than 
we that many Red coastal garrisons 
would “turn around.” Chiang’s 
Free Chinese" Army might grow 
with every Red division sent against 
it. 

I recently inspected this army. 
The average age of these veterans 
is 27. For five more years they could 
hold their own on the mainland 
against any reasonable odds. Even 
t^ay, poised as a threat to Red 
China, keeping a few Communist 
armies tied down on the opposite 
coast, each of Chiang’s 21 badly 
equipped divisions is worth its 

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25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


Farther down Asia’s nm, Indo- 
Chma is tottering, in spite of 
American aid, which seems to have 
been largely squandered in costly 
air drops. This war will never be 
won with French troops — or Ameri- 
can. Had only half the money been 
spent building an Indo-Chinese 
army under native command, it 
would have brought the free world 
many tough native divisions as 
effective as the Koreans, which 
would be more than enough to clear 
the peninsula 

They need just the type of army 
I saw in Greece — light, highly 
mobile forces which can strike hard 
and get away; men who arc sure 
they are fighting for their own 
freedom, and not for far-away 
France. 

Indo-China may pay the price 
pf the Korean cease-fire If it falls, 
Chinese manpower might then be 
switched to neighbouring Burma 
Here there is surely time, about ten 
divisions should suffice to clean up 
the bandits and keep out the Reds 
— we needed no more in Greece. 
The Burmese divisions need only 
cost a fraction of the sum which 
France and the U.S. have already 
squandered down the present Indo- 
Chinese rathole — Abound to be bot- 
tomless so long as money goes to 
pay foreign troops while the natives 
stand round as bored bystanders, 
without responsibility for their own 
freedom. 

Preparedness packages of about 
this ten-division size should also 


95 

suffice to keep Communists out of 
Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia and 
the Philippines. Without them each 
small country, conscious of its weak- 
ness, may freeze into shivering inac- 
tion before the Red advance. 

As for India, it is steeped in the 
ancient philosophy of non-resistance, 
and IS also proud of its present neu- 
tral position. I would not crudely 
thrust arms into unwilling hands 
now clasped m contemplation of the 
Infinite. However, there is in the 
Moslem creed of Pakistan no taboo 
against self-defence. The Pakistanis 
welcome help to keep Red troops 
on the other side of the Himalayas. 

Fronx firsthand experience I can 
say without question that the pre- 
paredness package would be warmly 
received in Persia I first met the 
present Shah in 1950. This young 
man is strongly pro-Western, keenly 
intelligent and earnestly for reform 
within his country. The Shah told 
me that his country desperately 
needed both economic improve- 
ments and a strengthened army. 
Persia, he said, was able to finance 
one or the other, but not both. 

Only a handful of badly equipped 
Persian troops stands between Per- 
sia’s oil wells and the Soviet border. 
Our military mission in Persia has 
given only eye-dropper aid. A pre- 
paredness package of ten divisions 
would not only safeguard the Shah’s 
border but would give him the 
needed power to carry out his re- 
forms, over the opposition of the. 
feudal landowners. 



promoted 

lo secretary 









Why the doctor 

recommends Horlicks . , . 

“Tiicdness and lack of 
energ> often indicate that 
the daily diet is not pio- 
viding nouiishment in the 
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foi supposing normal 
health and eneigy So, when tiredness 
and weakness can be traced to faulty or 
incomplete nouiishment, I recommend 
Hoi licks That is because Horlicks 
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plus the eneigising extracts of wheat 
and malted barley The 100'?^ nou- 
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HORLICKS 




25 DIVISIONS FOR THE COST OF ONE 


98 

What Persia should have is not 
the obsolete mountain artillery we 
have been sending her but mortars 
(they are lighter and cheaper) plus 
bazookas and Molotov-cocktail gre- 
nades to stop tanks 

Visiting Turkev, I had expected 
to find 21 combat-readv divisions 
I found the Turkish spirit to be 
magnificent, but the army sadly 
lacking in both modern equipment 
and thorough training 

When I arrived in nearby Greece, 
the end of my sur\ev trip, I 
found that America’s initial invest- 
ment, made in 1947, has paid off 
magnificently. Because of its thor 
ough training programme, this vic- 
torious army is as sound todav as 
when I left Greece in 1950 

America cannot furnish the world 
with American ground armies If 
we try, it will drain us of manpower 
and throw us into bankruptcy with- 
out ever firing a shot, which is what 
the Soviets want. 

Our duty is first to dot the Iron 
Curtain’s rim with these prepared- 
ness packages Seeking out trust- 
worthy allies, we should aid them 


in setting up training programmes 
and schools like Sang Mu Dai in 
Korea. 

Secondly, we should stand ready, 
when the Communists poke into 
a soft spot, to provide these native 
divisions, defending their native 
land, with the munitions of war 
they then will need but which they 
cannot make tor themselves 

Thirdly, wt should husband our 
strength for our greatest role, which 
IS to keep mastery of sea and air, 
garrisoning naval bases and airstrips 
needed to back these fighting allies 
with ships and planes, even as we 
did in Korea We must be able to 
deliver a devastating atomic coun- 
ter-attack 

Under such a programme, as 
native troops are trained, we can 
and should call in our costly Ameri- 
can overseas garrisons at the rate of 
perhaps two divisions or more per 
year. Of course some day, if needed, 
they can return 

Since our strength is not without 
limit, we should use it to aid only 
worthy allies And is any ally worthy 
who IS not eager to raise infantry to 
defend his native soil ^ 


Wired for Sound 

J. WOMAN Staying in Florida last winter was taken by friends to 
one of the posh night clubs When she entered the ladies* room she 
discovered a large mural of Adam, wearing only a fig leaf A sign 
warned customers. “Do Not Lift the Fig Leaf ’* But the visitor's 
feminine curiosity got the better of her, and she raised the leaf 
Bells began to ring, sirens sounded, piaster fell and bedlam set in. 
She turned and ran out of the ladies’ room door --only to be blinded 
by a giant spotlight, while the orchestra blared fanfares. 

Plattimouth N#hratlr*l 




a i-Mvl a A Y 


MADRAS • NEW DELHI • KANPUR 






B.O.A.C. flies 
to all six eoiiliiieiits 


GKt\l (.-\ 

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B.O.A.C. TAKES GOOD CARE OF 

fir -BO AC 



A unique clinic marshals citizens into a community war 

against broken marriages 


GiKiiHii IIP ON Divorce 


T his is the story of a bright ex- 
periment on a dark subject — 
divorce In Oklahoma City a deter- 
mined group of citizens, aroused by 
a climbing local divorce rate, de 
cided that something had to be 
done As one of the group said 
“We ask for community help 
against polio, cancer and heart 
disease Why not against divorce? 
Surely that’s a community prob- 
lem ” 

There were no funds for trained 
marriage counsellors But, these citi- 
zens reasoned, human problems are 
most often solved by common 
sen<;e So they conscripted amateur 
consultants and founded a unique 
institution which they called the 
Oklahoma City Family Clinic. 

That was in 1947. In the years 
since, more than 250 estranged cou- 
ples have brought their troubles to 
the clinic. Of these, 48 per cent had 
been separated, 1 1 per cent were al- 
ready divorced, 23 per cent had di- 
vorce suits pending. In nine out of 
ten cases the clinic brought recon- 


By DeWttt Reddick^ 

The clinic is free, the atmosphere 
friendly and informal Couples are 
invited to present their problems 
before a panel of four a doctor, a 
lawyer, a businessman and a mini- 
ster, each of whom gives his time. 

One Saturdav afternoon not long 
ago 1 met with a p.inel in a room 
provided b\ the local Red Cross. 
First wc read the questionnaires that 
had been filled out b) the husband 
and wife whose marriage was splin- 
tering Then the couple — let’s call 
them Evelyn and Carl— came in 
and took their seats, tense and hesi- 
tant The desire of the panel mem- 
bers, the lawyer assured the two, 
was to help them This could be 
done only if each would speak 
frankly and completely The panel 
would not take sides or fix blame; 
they were there onl\ to seek causes 
and recommend solutions. 

First Evelyn and then Carl was 
asked to speak without interruption 
from the other This was their story : 
After marriage Carl struggled 
through a year of college, then W2(s 

--11-J 1 — 1 _ -^4.^ 



no 


GANGING UP ON DIVORCE 


the end of the second year they had 
two children and Carl had been sent 
overseas. Evelyn took a job. Carl 
thought she should stay at home 
with the children. He thought she 
spent money unwisely. On his re- 
turn he made her leave work, would 
give her no allowance, was dicta- 
torial in all matters 

Carl said “She reads ‘home beau- 
tiful’ magazines but lets our home 
look like a doss house She com- 
plains all the time of headaches, but 
when I come home dead tired she 
nags me to take her out and spend 
money we can’t afford ’’ 

Members of the panel probed 
deeper It became apparent that 
Evelyn’s rebellion against house 
work was rooted in the experiences 
of her adolescence Foster parents 
had forced her to do all the house- 
work They allowed her no amuse- 
ments Her marriage had come as an 
escape Carl revered the memory of 
a mother who had been a meticu- 
lous housekeeper Also, he was ob- 
sessed with the idea that war had 
taken five years from his life, and 
that he had to work night and day 
to catch up and “make a success ” 
These shadows from the past dis- 
torted all their present-day relation- 
ships. 

With their grievances talked over, 
Evelyn and Carl could discuss their 
problems with more understand- 
ing; at one point they laughed to- 
gether over a remembered experi- 
once with the children Prompted 
hy panel members, they began to 


seek solutions, and out of all the 
talk there emerged some answers. 

The session lasted nearly four 
hours Evelyn and Carl left with 
assurances of follow-up conferences 
with panel members, and with plans 
that promised to change their lives. 

The chance to talk things over. 
With friendly advisers helps an 
estranged man and wife to break 
down resentments, to search out 
the real causes of friction and to 
focus attention on common objec- 
tives Surprisingly often a couple 
will cancel follow-up conferences 
with a cheery, “We’re already 
working things out — thanks to 
you 

The idea of the Family Clinic 
grew out of the kindly heart of Bliss 
Kelly, 6o, an cx-newspaperman 
turned lawyer. Happily married 
himself, he was disturbed by the 
increasing number of divorce cases 
that crossed his desk And the tragic 
effect upon the children stirred him 
deeply too often, he noted, teen- 
agers involved in crime came from 
broken homes 

Most marital problems, he was 
convinced, fell into one of four cate- 
gories — physical, financial, legal or 
spiritual No one person could be 
wise enough to counsel in all these 
areas, so he devised the panel plan 
with a consultant in each field. 

Community support came from 
many directions. Judges sitting on 
divorce cases referred couples to the 
clinic. Lawyers sent in many of 
their divorce clients. As word of the 




XT’s common-sense for every fanuly to take ‘ Ovaltme for 
this delicious food beverage supplies vital nutritive 
elements which are often missing from ordinary daily diet. 
‘ Ovaltme ’ is easily digestible, even for invalids and the 
very young. It helps to promote sweet sleep and abundant 
energy in people of all ages 

Some of Nature’s finest foods are concentrated in ‘ Ovaltme * — 
ripe barley malt, pure creamy cow’s milk and specially 
prepared cocoa, together with natural phosphatides and 
vitamins It is further fortified with additional vitamins 
B and D. Start serving ‘ Ovalune ’ at once, avoid 
substitutes. 

Distributors Grahams Trading Co {India) Ltd. 








^ hiOit 


Listen to the Oraltinm Amatmur Hours froin Radio Ceyion (Hindi — 
4/72 metre^ Saturdays 8 to 8 30 m (English — 25 05 metres) 
Sundays 8 to 8 30 p m 






ACC 


^4mmo VP ON DrvoncE 



“The National Marriage Guidance Council, with headquarters off Grosvenor 
Square, London, is a body of voluntary workers which aims to foster successful 
marriage and to counsel married couples in difficulties It has 400 specially 
selected and trained marriage counsellors working through 80 branches scat- 
tered over Britain 

“All who volunteer for the exacting work of rescuing marriages which arc 
near breaking point are unpaid, and a condition of their acceptance by the 
Council IS that they themselves are happily married, only two of the 400 are 
unmarried; and they have exceptional qualifications These voluntary part- 
time workers come from all walks of life, the essential quality is an under- 
standing mind, analytical but sympathetic They must pass searching tests and 
strict training followed by a year of probation before they are accepted as full 
counsellors “ — Alison Settle, wriung in the Liverpool Post^ October i^th, 1953 


clinic’s work spread, friends per- 
suaded reluctant couples to apply 
for hearings School teachers, prob- 
ing into causes of pupils’ miscon- 
duct or poor scholarship, have often 
discovered strained home relations 
and talked parents into consulting 
the clinic Ministers frequently ad- 
vise troubled church members to 
request a hearing. 

An increasing sense of community 
responsibility concerning divorce is 
one of the most heartening results 
of the Family Clinic’s work When 
quarrels in one family resulted from 
inadequate living quarters and high 
rent, the minister then serving on 
the panel asked his congregation for 
help Within two days he had ar- 
ranged for the family to move into 
a new home at moderate rent 
When finances are at the root of the 
trouble businessmen frequently ar- 
range for a better job for the hus- 
band. A physician on the panel gave 
a troubled wife a free medical ex- 


amination because of her evident 
nervous condition, then referred 
her to a specialist who could deal 
with her trouble 

But perhaps the most important 
follow-up IS through the churches. 
Of the 250 couples who have ap- 
peared at hearings there were only 
three in which husband and wife 
attended chuich regularly. Clinic 
panels find that reconciliation be- 
comes almost a certainty if they can 
persuade the couple to become ac- 
tive in church So the minister on 
the panel invites the couple to con- 
sult him for further discussion of 
religion (Almost one-third have 
accepted the invitation ) He finds 
which church they are interested in 
and arranges for them to meet the 
pastor and some members 

In the clinic’s first six years, more 
than 80 doctors, businessmen, min* 
isters and lawyers have given freely 
of their time as consultants. Despite 
lack of special training as’marnagc 





kEABEk^S DIGEST 


50unscllors their common-sense ap- 
)roach has been amazingly success- 
ul in turning up the real causes of 
nantal strife and in getting the 
>nncipals in almost every case to 
vork out a satisfactory solution of 
heir difficulties 


Already six other Oklahoma cities 
have adopted the citizens’ panel 
plan, with notable success Com- 
munities elsewhere will discover 
that they, too, have hidden talents 
which can be drawn upon to heal 
hidden troubles 




Caught in Passing 

Young wnt to husband on tram “It we miss two payments on the 
washing machine and one on the refrigerator, we'll have enough for a 
down payment on a television set — “Ovci the T( uups ’ 1X1 Toronto Sim 

OviRHFARD outside a Cinema “I never go to a film unless I’ve seen 
it before Then I f^now it’s good ” — Contnhuttii b> j M 

Overheard in a bus “We want to see that picture called Ftom Hetc 
to Maternity ’’ ( o'umhus O/ifx' %tatr JourtKil 

Girl, who works for a radio-TV" executive, exploding to a fntnd 
“My boss has a split personality — and I loathe them both ’’ 

- B» nnf tt Ctrf King I tatutes 

One woman to another “Well, Tm glad I got my children reared bcfc;rc 
there was any such thing as adolescence ” -Contnbutui in w f c *irroii 


Reason Enough Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, the story goes, 
was making an inspection of public institutions in Budapest Matyas 
Rakosi, the Communist Party boss, accompanied him Out of courtesy, 
the officials of the institutions addressed their remarks to Nagy, but 
Rakosi gave all the answers 

A school headmaster presented a long list of desperately needed im- 
provements and asked for a large grant Before Nagy could reply, Rakosi 
interrupted with the announcement that the school would be allotted only 
5,000 forints But when the warden of a prison began a similar appeal for 
additional funds, Rakosi cut him short with, “You will receive one 
million forints ’’ 

Later Nagy ventured to ask why Rakosi had been so parsimonious 
with the schoolmaster and so generous to the prison warden 

“I’m surprised to see you exhibiting so little knowledge of basic Party 
principles. Comrade,” answered Rakosi “Is cither of us likely to go to 

^hool again — Contributed by Finnc Shor 



BOOK SECTION 



G R\NDi()stiY conceived m ihc j85()S, and technically half a 
ccntun ahead of her time, Brunei's mammoth Great 
Eastern was in her day the most famous ship since Noah’s Ark. 
wShe generated an aura of ballyhoo which always promised 
more than she could deliver, for the great ship had a fatal 
attraction for disaster. But her ultimate dramatic triumph in 
laying the fiist oceanic cables finally justified her existence. 

James Dagan’s deft and sparkling biography of this fate- 
struck monster, The Gy eat Iron Ship, which killed her de- 
signer, drowned her first captain, and ended as a floating 
circus, is almost certain to become a best-seller .//j 

“The Great Iron Ship“ published 19S3 bv Hamish Hamilton, London, at J6s • 



The Great Iron Ship 


HUNDRED YEARS AGO, thc 

world watched a wonder 
grow on a muddy strand 
of the Thames in Lon- 
don. It was a steamship five times 
the size of the biggest vessel then 
afloat. The fabulous Great Eastern^ 
mother of ocean liners, was designed 
to carry 4,000 passengers, almost 
twice as many as the Queen Maryy 
bunched 77 years later A vessel 693 
feet long and 120 feet wide, she 
would, fully laden, outweigh the 
197 English ships that fought the 
Spanish Armada 

The Great Eastern had five fun- 
nels and SIX masts, which earned 
6,500 square yards of sail, an im- 
pressive figure even in the height of 
thc clippcr-ship period She had two 
sets of engines, their strength of 
11,000 horses was “enough to run 
all thc cotton mills in Manchester ” 
One power plant turned the enor- 
mous paddle wheels which projected 
15 feet from the vessel’s sides, the 
other ran a 24-foot propeller screw 
which — still the largest a ship has 
carried — reminded a writer of “the 
boncsof some pre- Adamite animal.” 

This mighty ship was conjured 
up by thc most celebrated engineer 
or thc mid-i9th century, Isambard 
Kingdom Brunei At a time when 
the engineers had captured the im- 
lrr6 


agination of the world, Brunei, a 
small, dynamic man, was known as 
the “Little Giant” of builders. He 
was famous at 20, when he bossed 
the construction of the first modern 
underwater shaft, the Thames Tun- 
nel, everything he did was outsize, 
brilliant and radical He was pos- 
sessed with grandeur For 30 years 
he had built bridges, viaducts, rail- 
ways, dry docks and ships amidst 
salvos of controversy 

In 1825 he published an argument 
for a canal through the Isthmus of 
Panama He introduced railway te- 
legraphy in 1839. He invented the 
compartmented goods wagon, and 
fought unsuccessfully for the adop- 
tion of seven-foot railway tracks 
Sometimes his vaulting imagination 
outstripped the technology of his 
time During the Crimean War he 
designed an armoured gunboat 
which would launch amphibious 
tanks, thc vehicles to be powered 
by jet propulsion. The Great East- 
ern, which Brunei conceived in 
1851, was an engineering and finan- 
cial venture that also plunged far 
ahead in time. It marked the tragic 
climax of h;s career. 

The reason for the ship was 
grandly simple. Brunei wanted a 
vessel large enough to make the 
22,ooo-milc round trip to Ceylon 




THE GREAT IRON SHIP //jr; 


without refuelling. Hence the Great 
Eastern would carry 12,000 tons of 
coal. Such a ship, he believed — and 
he persuaded financiers to raise 
^600,000 on this thesis — could 
monopolize the imperial trade to 
the Orient and Australia 

When work began on the Great 
Eastern in 1854, 2,000 men scuttled 
like insects over the gigantic struc- 
ture Her design was a technological 
explosion The first vessel without 
ribs, she was a daring fabric of 
30,000 curved iron plates, held in 
place by three million rivets, each 
an inch thick and driven by hand 
She had two hulls, one inside the 
other, three feet apart and heavily 
braced, extending to six feet above 
the waterline. Inside these, bulk- 
heads formed 12 watertight com- 
partments; she was as nearly un- 
sinkable as engineering genius could 
make her 

As the behemoth took shape, 
Longfellow and other poets sang of 
this Wonder of the Seas, this Float- 
ing City. Lithographs of it were 
seen everywhere and stereopticon 
pictures of the marvel were common 
in mid-Victorian parlours But 
prominent engineers had doubts 
Some predicted that when a big 
wave lifted her amidships the Great 
Eastern would snap like a twig over 
a stone This was to be the one 
disaster spared the ship in a long 
career of catastrophe 

?HE Great Eastern was not built 
in dry-dock — there was none in 


existence large enough — but on twol 
timber cradles. These rested on iroii^^ 
rollers placed across 1 ail way rail 5 |' 
which were m turn supported by 
concrete and timber piles She lay \ 
on the point ot a sweeping bend in 
the Thames, 330 feet from the high- \ 
tide mark For three years her 58- ’ 
foot height dominated the area- 
Passing seamen stared, marvelled 
and scoffed- they hated the iron 
Kloloch, the big “smoke box,” that 



work 

During construction four work- 
men were killed and the head of a 
prying visitor was crushed by a pile 
driver The builders were proud of 
the low casualty rate Nevertheless, 
a ghost story fastened upon the ship. 
It was said that a riveter, who was 
missing and could not be accounted 
for, had been sealed up alive in one 
of the hull compartments, and that 
his screams could not be heard 
above the din of the hammers. His 
ghost was said to have hoodooed 
the ship 

Certainly misfortune dogged her 
from the start Soon after construc- 
tion began, the price of non plate 
increased, and after two years the 
company ran out of money. Work 
was suspended and Brunei was re- 
moved from his post as engineer. He 
responded by raising more money 
and renting a house near the yard. 
When work was resumed after 
three months, he continued to direct 
it without pay and without -an 
official connection with the project. 



V//^ 


THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


As the last plates were finally 
riveted, speculation mounted about 
the launching. The Great Eastern 
was the heaviest object that man 
had attempted to move. Moreover, 
since the river was not wide enough 
to receive her head on, she would 
have to be launched sidewise, a 
scheme then contrary to all precepts 
of large-ship building Brunei would 
need hydraulic rams to push the 
ship, steam tugs to pull her, miles of 
massive chains, and gigantic steam 
winches and windlasses to check her 
if she slid down the ways too fast 
The Times warned it would be a 
long and tedious affair of eight to ten 
hours. Actually it took three months 
Brunei announced the launching 
for November 3, 1857, enjoining 
“perfect silence” so that his orders 
could be heard He did not know 
that the company had issued thou- 
sands of tickets, that grandstands 
were going up nearby, that Thames 
boatmen were booking hordes to 
watch from the river As the hour 
approached, brass bands blared and, 
despite a dark drizzle, an enormous 
crowd gathered for the spectacle 
Amid the muddy tumult, little 
Brunei, in his tall beaver hat, herded 
the sight-seers away from the launch- 
ing apparatus and mounted a ros- 
trum high on the ship At noon he 
gave the signal. The mighty vessel 
shuddered and groaned, and the 
very mud beneath her quaked in 
majestic convulsion. “She moves*” 
people yelled. “She moves*” Her 
stern slid three inches 


Brunei waved a red flag for the 
hydraulic rams to push. Tnere was 
a scraping squeal and the Great 
Eastern started to slide Among the 
thousands who simply stood and 
sighed was the gang on the 6o-ton 
stern checking drum Its unattended 
windlass began to spin m reverse, 
hurling dozens of workers over the 
heads of the crowd Spectators and 
workers scattered in panic Five 
men were carried off, two of whom 
died 

Brunei organized another at- 
tempt as a heavy rain began to fall. 
The expectant crowd waited in the 
mud Again the ship grumbled and 
groaned but would not move. 
Chains snapped and flailed links, as 
thick as a man’s arm, at screaming, 
running people 

A second official launching, set 
for the next favourable tide, in De- 
cember, was no more successlul Be- 
tween “launchings,” however, Bru- 
nei continued to wrestle the ship 
forward an inch at a time The 
struggle was marked by calamitous 
accidents and expense As The 
Times reported 

“Hydraulic rams, windlasses and 
chains, although of the most mas- 
sive construction, were all broken in 
legular succession, till scarcely any- 
thing of the apparatus was left to 
continue w^ork.” By January of 
1858, when the Great Eastern had 
been nudged nearly two-thirds of 
the way to the water, the launch- 
ing had cost 1,000 a foot. 

For the next favourable tide Bru- 




Does 

advertising 
really reduce 
the price ? 


TATnrnihR vou’rt buying a car oi a 
toothpasl( oi (mrud 
fiu’l, Nou’it most likely to < hoosi soiiit - 
thing with a nanit \ou know \ wdl- 
known naiiH \ou fetl, is a guaiantei ol 
qualitv But what about piue * How 
miuhtxtiaau vou paving bf cause voui 
tvpewiiUi OI tube ol Icjothpaslr is a 
W( ll-kiiown and if liable make * 1 he 

answf'i IS, usually, nothing 

It’s all a rnattei ol mass pioelurtum 
— elf pioducing the merchandise', pack- 
ing and wiapping it in quantities so laige 
that ptoduetioii costs aie c ut Ol course , 
tC3 produte in large quantities, the manu- 
facturer must M in large quantities 
And that is where advertisnig plays its 
very important part 

Through adyertising, a manufactuier 
can tell many more people about his 
pioduct, far more cheaply and efficiently 


than if hf finplovcd thou ands ol sales- 
rne ii to c all at c \ c i \ house \\ he n more 
pc oph know iboul his piocluci more 
people buv it and this generally 
means .i iowti pi ic ( , because when 
output goes uj) the cost of each item 
c ome s down 

Sb aeKcitising costs vou nothing, and 
III manv c ase s it me ans that vou pav less 
loi hiiU) goods loi the manufacturer 
who acUeiliscs his piotlucts must main- 
tain e|uaht\, otheiwisc people will not 
trust them and buv tlic m again when 
thev sec them 

Adyeitising, theiefoic, helps both the 
jiublic and the maiiularturei through 
this endless chain of cause and effect. 
\nd, because 1 he Reader’s Digest 
accepts onlv advertiseis of repute, 
ran place extra reliance on what you 
see in Us advertisement pages. 

H9’ 


A CONDENSED BOOK 


March 


fttcl assembled a motive force of 
nearly 6,000 tons, half the dead 
weight of the ship itself. The vessel 
Was finally launched on Sunday, 
lanuary 31. There were no specta- 
tors; people had tired of watching 
abortive launchings 

HE Great Eastern had already 
cost 800, 000, and though she was 
now afloat she still lacked funnels, 
sails, instruments, furnishings and 
masts. It would cost £120,000 more 
to complete her 

Throughout 1858 the shareholders 
vigorously asserted the great ship’s 
chief talent — that of filling news- 
paper columns. Most wanted to sell 
her. One hoped the navy would 
buy them out “As a war steamer 
she may be invaluable,’’ the suffei- 
ing investor wrote to The Times, 
pointing out that at top speed she 
could ram-sink anything afloat. The 
navy did not respond, and by 
autumn The Times was suggesting 
that “all England put its head to- 
gether to think what to do with the 
monster ’’ 

In desperation the debt-ridden 
directors opened the vessel to 
sightseers and took ;^5,ooo in one 
week from rowdy cockneys who 
chased each other through the cav- 
ernous ship Queen Victoria arrived 
by royal yacht and came aboard 
with her nose buried in a bouquet. 
The Thames stank powerfully in 
those days. 

‘The ©rdcal of the launching left 
Brunei dazed and ill and his physi- 


cian sent him to Egypt to rest. When 
he returned to London he found the 
company defunct Brunei helped 
found a new company, which 
bought the ship for 160,000 The 
original shareholders had lost more 
than ;^6oo,ooo 

America was clamouring to see 
the Great Eastern, and her second 
group of investors brushed aside 
Brunei’s warning that the advantage 
of the ship’s great coal capacity 
“would not be felt in short voyages, 
for instance, to New York ’’ They 
now fitted her out to cross the At- 
lantic, calculating that eight round 
trips a year to America could earn 
15 per cent per annum. 

The grand saloon was decorated, 
and staterooms were furnished for 
300 first class passengers There has 
not been such a grand saloon since 
It was 62 feet long, 36 feet wide, 
white and gilt in decor, with sil- 
vered ornamental ironwork A fun- 
nel that passed through it was 
encased in mirrors The sofas and 
chairs were of carved teak with 
claret plush upholstery 

The main deck was an acreage of 
teak dotted by skylights and small 
deckhouses called “cabooses,” which 
were foyers for stairs or cattle pens. 
The staterooms were twice as large 
as Cunard’s best cabins, and the 
buried second- and third-class quai- 
ters were to be elaborately venti- 
lated. These lesser quarters, how- 
ever, were not installed for nine 
more years. 

A banquet, which Brunei was 




THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


121 


^954 

tcK> ill to attend, celebrated the 
ship’s commissioning in August 
1859. Peers, Members of Parlia- 
ment, engineers and capitalists were 
introduced to Captain William 
Harrison, who had been chosen over 
200 competitors to command the 
great ship The directors announced 
that on September 6 the Great 
Eastern would sail for Holyhead, 
Wales, on its way to America 

The day before she was to start 
her ocean adventures, a faltering 
white-faced man painfully climbed 
aboard His associates were heavy 
in heart as they looked at Brunei. 
Only 53, he had changed hi months 
from the tough, tanned boss of 
great enterprises to a quaking an- 
cient. As he posed for pictures 
against the towering mainmast, he 
staggered and fell with a stroke He 
was tenderly carried off the great 
ship that had been his dream 

the leviathan finally put 
out to sea, thousands lined the banks 
of the Thames to the water’s edge, 
cheering enthusiastically as she slid 
past. The great paddle wheels began 
to turn, and ten minutes after the 
tugs had cast her loose in the Chan- 
nel the Great Eastern “set at rest 
for ever all doubt as to her being the 
fastest vessel beyond compare in the 
world ” 

Off Hastings, however, the for- 
ward funnel suddenly blew out of 
the' ship with a thunderous report. 
The grand saloon, which the pas- 
sengers had just left, was enveloped 


in clouds of steam, its mirrors “were 
shattered into ten thousand frag- 
ments” and the oak stairs leading 
to It were blown to splinters Broken 
glass and bits of wood fell like hail, 
and the ship’s furnaces, their red 
glare now visible through. a hole in 
the saloon deck, spewed flames and 
ashes 

A fireman escaped being boiled 
alive by diving down an ash chute, 
only to be drawn into a paddle 
wheel and crushed. The forward 
stoke-hole suffered 15 explosion vic- 
tims, of whom five later died. At 
the inquest on the dead firemen the 
explosion was laid to steam building 
up in the funnel jacket. The escape 
cock on the steam jacket had been 
closed by some unknown person. 

Back in London, the paralysed 
Brunei was not told of the humilia- 
tion for four days The news killed 
him The iron whale that ate gold 
and men was showing her unap- 
peasable appetite 

The ship was opened for sight- 
seers during repairs, with the explo- 
sion damage as an added induce- 
ment. When the repairs languished, 
the directors took the ship to Holy- 
head to mop up tourist half-crowns 
there 

Late m October a tremendous 
storm struck Holyhead The Great 
Eastern lost her mooring and was 
adrift at the mercy of die raging 
elements. Through 18 hours of mas- 
terful manceuvnng Captain Har- 
rison proved the ship seaworthy iiT 
a blow which sent many vessels 



March 


A CONDENSED BOOK 


down But the wind blew out the 
saloon skylights ^nd let in a flood of 
water; and the sumptuous saloon, 
so recently restored, was again a 
shambles 

Small shareholders were now in 
revolt, demanding that something 
be done about making the ship pay 
In vain the directors appealed to 
Gladstone, then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, for a subsidv 

In January i860 Captain Harrison 
went ashore in his gig A sudden 
squall capsized the boat, drowning 
the nine-year-old son of the chief 
purser, the coxswain and the master 
of the great ship. 

After this disaster the directors 
resigned, and a new board set out to 
raise ^100,000 in ^5 shares to com- 
plete the ship The reorganized 
companv was headed by Daniel 
Gooch, a capitalist who had once 
been a locomotive superintendent 
on one of Brunei’s railways The 
companv he now led constituted the 
ship’s third group of investors and 
the Wonder of the Seas had not yet 
carried a paying passenger 

New York “public expecta- 
tion was on tiptoe ’ as the Great 
Eastern began taking on passengers 
in May i860 for the long-delayed 
transatlantic maiden voyage About 
300 passengers went aboard the 
ship, all she had beds for When 
she failed to depart as advertised — 
for she was still unfinished and in 
‘ 3 :rouble — most of them left her and 
rook a reliable Cunarder. The iron 


ship finally sailed on June 17, with 
only 35 paying guests, eight com- 
pany deadheads, including Daniel 
Gooch, and a crew of 418 The cargo 
consisted of 500 gross of London 
Club Sauce 

The passengers were lost in the 
ship They wandered through her 
like children discovering marvels 
They were irresistibly drawn to the 
guard walk outside the paddle 
boxes, and spent hours watching the 
ship's long triple wake The cattle 
pens on deck supplied fresh-killed 
mutton and fowl for the table, and 
at night there were concerts in the 
grand saloon But the slaggy coal 
used bhsterf^d the funnel casings 
which passed up through the 
saloons, and the main dining saloon 
had to be abandoned because of the 
heat 

As the Gteat Eastern approached 
New York, thousands boarded har- 
bour craft, yachts and ferries, and 
went out to meet her Soon she was 
surrounded by hundreds of small 
vessels, each bulging with specta- 
tors At Fort Hamilton the garrison 
fired a 14-gun salute People cov- 
ered wharves, housetops, church 
steeples as the monster paraded up 
the Hudson River When the ship 
was berthed, her projecting paddle 
box chewed five feet into the wharf, 
sending people howling and fight- 
ing to get out of the way 

In the morning an extemporane- 
ous fair rose along nearby streets 
and on the wharf Booths began sell- 
ing twopenny dippers of Great 



THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


^954 

Eastern lemonade” as well Great 
Eastern oysters” and Great Eastern 
lager beer.” Impromptu cabarets 
were set up in the area, and a 
steamer fitted with tables and awn- 
ings was moored under the big 
ship's stern Omnibuses and horse 
trams with new-painted banners, 
“ro THE GREAT EASTERN,” Were di- 
verted to the waterfront from other 
parts of town, and the city’s hotel 
registrations lose 6,000 above the 
daily norm 

But the Great Eastern was not 
ready for exhibition It remained 
closed to sight-seers five days for 
clean-up and repair, while New 
York papers fumed at the delay 
Meanwhile, disasters piled up 
aboard A Great Eastern hand sent 
to examine the paddle wheel fell to 
his death A drunken sailor skid- 
ded off the guard walk and was 
drowned A fight in the boiler-room 
caused 13 casualties, of whom one 
died When a fireman was killed 
with a wrench in another brawl — 
the ship’s 22nd victim — a six-man 
police detail was put aboard. 

The ship was finally thrown open 
on the eve of American Independ- 
ence Day Admission was $1, a 
price which New Yorkers consid- 
ered an outrage The customers 
could stay aboard all day if they 
wished, and most of them did, 
patronizing the large bar which had 
been opened on the ship. But only 
1,500 paid admissions were taken 
on the first day, and only 2,000 on 
Independence Day. Those who did 


go aboard tried to get their dot* 
lar’s worth by pocketing souvenirs* 
Gooch posted sober crew members 
to protect property The purser 
came upon two visitors removing 
an oil painting from the grand 
saloon. Heremonstrated with them. 
The guests struck him over the 
head with the picture and left him 
unconscious. 

HEN the directors cut admis- 
sion fees by half, business improved. 
In four weeks the Great Eastern 
sold 143,764 tickets. Then the 
crowds thinned The time had come 
for an excursion to cater to Ameri- 
cans who wanted to ride in the 
great ship. A two-day cruise for $10 
was announced, the passengers to 
buy their own meals aboard. P T. 
Barnum offered to take over the ex- 
cursion, but the directors preferred 
to keep all the profit., for the com- 
pany 

Two thousand New Yorkers took 
the cruise and, as Gooch wrote in 
his diary with remarkable under- 
statement, “it was a most extraor- 
dinary trip.” Military bands played 
on the main deck, spirits were 
plentiful aboard, and by the time 
the Great Eastern rounded Sandy 
Hook many of the musicians had 
succumbed to a combined seizure 
of alcohol and seasickness. Cards 
and dice appeared, and gaming cir- 
cles formed on the deck Others 
found vent for their holiday mood 
in drinking and pugilism.- 

The grand saloon had been trans 






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THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


formed into a cafe. But when meal- 
time came the waiters made no 
move, though the excursionists 
howled for provender. A pipe had 
burst in the provision-room and 
flooded the food stores. At length 
food was hauled from another store- 
room It consisted of dcssicated 
fowl, maggoty beef, salt junk and 
biscuits hard as stone 
Frayed tempers were not im- 
proved when night came “As the 
passengers had no beds to go to,” 
Gooch s diary said, “they lay about 
everywhere ” He failed to add who 
was responsible for taking 2,000 
passengers on a two-night voyage 
when there were beds for 300 A 
number of thin mattresses were dis- 
pensed on deck , as the supply dwin- 
dled, stewards demanded so cents 
apiece tor them A ram of cinders 
from the funnels poured over the 
deck sleepers A shower during the 
night, and the morning dew, helped 
to cake soot on the passengers “In 
thi morning they woke up verv 
cross,” Gooch said And when they 
went down to breakfast there wasn’t 
any The victuals had been ex- 
hausted the night before 
The schedule called for an early- 
morning arrival at the fashionable 
watering place of Old Point Com- 
fort, where the voyagers were to 
spend a day Outrage took on a 
touch of alarm when the Great 
Eastern steamed through che morn- 
ing without sighting land The ship 
had strayed off course 100 miles to 
sea. Not until mid-aftcrnoon did the 


izS 

hungry and worried argonauts de- 
scry land. 

Many dissident excursionists went 
home by train, but on the return 
trip the vessel seemed to have more . 
people than before At sea many 
grinning stowaways appeared; they 
paid half a dollar to make the trip 
back to New York 

The Great Eastern docked in New 
York in a gale of abuse. A second 
excursion drew only 100 paying 
passengers 

W ithout salvos or indeed a crowd 
on the wharf, the Great Eastern 
presently slipped away from New 
York for home, with 100 passen- 
gers On her way she established an 
eastbound speed record — nine days 
four hours But the American ex- 
hibition had been a disaster Ex- 
pected to net 1 40,000, It had taken 
in only ^24,000, more than half of 
which went for overhcid expenses. 

After an unprofitable and expen- 
sive winter — cliinng which she had 
to have a new stern propeller tube, 
fouled the hawser of a small sight- 
seer’s boat and drowned two of its 
passengers, smashed into the frigate 
Blenheim, had to pay a ^24,000 
judgment to an engineering firm 
for repairing the damage incurred 
in the funnel explosion — the Great 
Eastern made a second voyage to 
New Y ork It was without incident. 
With the American Civil War a 
month old, the city had no time to 
spare for the Great Eastern 

In New York the ship was.loadccfer 
with 5,000 tons of wheat and sailed 



THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


./a6 

for Liverpool with 194 passengers. 
There she found the shareholders 
rejoicing. The War Office had de- 
cided to charter the Great Eastern 
40 carry reinforcements for the 
Canadian garrison, and she was 
quickly readied as a troop carrier. 
At last Her Majesty’s ministers had 
recognized the ship's value as a 
transport, her financial troubles 
seemed over. 

The ship sailed with 3,000 souls 
aboard — twice as many as had e\er 
been carried on any other ship But 
after this single trip the War Office 
ended the charter and demolished 
the daydreams of the shareholders 

When the Great Eastern plied the 
Atlantic, ocean disasters from fires 
and sinkings were commonplace 
Not the least of the Great Eastern's 
appeal, therefore, lay in her safety 
features She had alreadv proved 
herself by survuing a funnel explo- 
sion which would have destroyed 
any other ship, and by weathering 
a storm which sent many another 
to the bottom Her durability was 
soon to be still further tested 

The 400 passengers who sailed 
with her on September 10, 1861, 
had only the usual worries — that is, 
“the greatest disorder and worst 
possible arrangements “ But on the 
third day the wind rose violently 

At first It seemed a freak local 
blow that would soon pass But the 
gale continued unabated, throwing 
the Great Eastern into steep port 
ptrolls, and plunging the gigantic pad- 
dle vheel under the waves. When 


an unusual noise was heard above 
the engines and the crash of water, 
investigation disc losed that the port 
paddle-box girders were bent and 
that the wheel was scraping against 
the ship’s side plates For fear that 
the broken wheel would hole the 
ship, the paddle engine was stopped 
In the engine-room several rolls 
of heavy leaden plates had broken 
loose and were tumbling from side 
to side, battering at the inner bulk- 
heads Two large tanks of fish oil 
tore loose and fell through a hatch 
to the engine deck, spreading hun- 
diens of gallons of the liquid The 
stench of oil was compounded with 
the terror of the storm in the da vs 
of ordeal which followed 
The hurricane mounted One by 
one the sailors w'cre forced to cut 
away the flailing, splintering life- 
boats, until the davits were empty 
An extraordinary sea took away the 
port paddle wheel Soon afterwards 
the starboard paddle wheel was car- 
ried away in a single sweep of water. 
The propeller alone could not hold 
the ship on her heading Moreover, 
fearful sounds could be heard from 
the rudder and screw assembly An 
inspection revealed that the rudder 
was flapping out of control in the 
water The captain ordered the screw 
stopped and the ship fell silent, ex- 
cept for the donkey engines labour- 
ing at the pumps. An attempt to raise 
sail failed, the canvas streaming 
away in ribbons in the fierce winds 
In the grand saloon the rosewood 
grand piano hurtled back and forth, 



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crashing into the elegant buffets, 
until It smashed itself to splinters. 
The saloon stove went adrift and 
crashed into the pier glass on the 
funnel casing. The dining saloon 
was similarly wrecked, and from 
below there was an echoing tumult 
of shifting, bursting cargo and 
stores, none of which had been 
made fast properly Things had 
simply been put aboard as in a store- 
house; now they were being bat- 
tered to pieces 

The first day the ship's surgeon 
treated 27 major fracture cases He 
had no time for the many broken 
noses and contusions. 

The storm remained at hurricane 
force the second day Many cabin 
portholes had been smashed and 
staterooms were soaked Tcrnfied 
passengers cringed in corners of the 
saloons Waves surged over the 
deck, skylights were broken, and 
water fell by the ton and drained 
into the bilges so that the pumps 
were barely equal to the deluge No 
one had eaten for 24 hours, nor 
would they for 24 more. The hag- 
gard master summoned a passenger 
committee to announce that the 
stokers had broken into the liquor 
stores and refused to take orders. 
The committee was armed as a 
posse to patrol the ship and protect 
the women 

The vessel remained out of con- 
trol during die second night of 
storm The free-swinging rudder 
was smashing into the idle screw, 
chewtpg more oak with each blow. 


Among the passengers was an en- 
gineer, Hamilton E. Towle, who 
conceived a bold plan for capturing 
and controlling the rudder. The 
captain was induced to let him try 
It. With 15 fathoms of chain cable 
and many hours of perilous work, 
the whirling rudder was at last las- 
soed and made fast It was an extra- 
ordinary achievement, for which 
Towle won a salvage award of 
/ 2,000 

After 75 hours of helplessness the 
propeller engine was turned on and 
the Great Eastern limped into 
Queenstown (Cobh) harbour as the 
storm subsided 

REPAIR of the Great Eastern 
cost j[ 6 {),ooo The giant steamer, 
however, was being universally ac- 
claimed for her victory over the 
hurricane, and hope still throbbed 
in the hearts of her owners. They 
planned a busy year for 1862 

It was an opportune time The 
United States, occupied with the 
Civil War, had surrendered to Brit- 
ain the ocean-carrying trade won by 
Its famed clipper ships The Great 
Eastern herself had tapped this op- 
portunity the year before when she 
transported 5,000 tons of prairie 
wheat from New York to Liver- 
pool, the largest cargo a ship had 
ever carried. Her directors, how- 
ever, did not grasp the importance 
of this trade, obsessed as they were 
with first-class passengers. 

They saw no profit in emigrants 
either, despite the fact that 800,000 



THE GREAT IRON SHIP 





^954 

went to the United States in the 
war years. Had they sent their ship 
to the emigrant staging areas in 
Queenstown or Hamburg they 
might have beaten the competition 
to a frazzle. With ^20,000 in west 
bound humans and a like amount 
in eastbound wheat, the great ship 
might have paid. 

It was not to be The Great East- 
ern made three trips to New York 
in 1862, losing ^320 on the first and 
running home with her highest 
gross, /45,ooo, on the second On 
the third trip calamity struck again 

Captain Walter Paton (the sev- 
enth captain the monster had now 
had) felt that the ship was too 
heavily laden to risk crossing the 
shallows at Sandy Hook, near New 
York, where she might go aground. 
He decided, therefore, to go down 
Long Island Sound to Flushing 
Bay At 2 a m., as the pilot was tak- 
ing her past Montauk Light and 
into the Sound, the men on the 
bi idgc heard a dull rumble and the 
ship heeled over a few degrees. 

When the Great Eastern moored 
in Flushing, she was listing to star- 
board A diver, sent down to exam- 
ine the hull, found a rip along the 
bottom 83 feet long and nine feet 
wide No other vessel could have 
survived such an accident. The 
giant’s inner skin was undamaged, 
though her between-hulls space had 
filled with water. 

Soundings at the point of the ac- 
cident revealed a rock needle that 
towered within 24 feet of the sur- 


face. The Great Eastern had made 
a contribution to geography: the 
“Great Eastern Rock” is still car- 
ried on mariners’ charts. 

It looked like the finish of the 
monster ship. No dry-dock in the 
world was large enough to take her. 

And she could not be beached and 
repaired for, unlike other steamers, 
her bottom was flat Her dilemma 
seemed insoluble 

But the Great Eastern had a 
magnetism for brilliant men as 
strong as her attraction for disaster. 
Now, in her desperate situation, a 
New York engineer, Edward S. 
Renwick, came foru^ard with an 
offer to repair the ship under water. 

He was to be paid only if he suc- 
ceeded 

Renwick had decided to apply 
a “caisson,” or what would now be 
called a coffer-dam, to the vast hole. 

It would be a semi-c)lindcr of 
heavy wood, 102 feel long, 16 feet 
wide, and curved to fit the ship’s 
hull He proposed to fit this shell 
over the gash and pump it and the 
space between the hulls dr), so that 
repairmen could patch the outer 
hull 

This huge caisson, itself a vessel 
of about 60 tons capacity, had to be 
built in a shipyard, launched like a 
ship and towed to Flushing Bay. 
There it was heavily ballasted and 
lowered A diver went down to sec 
that It was accurately fitted over the 
hole, then it was fastened to the ship ^ 
with chains. The edges of the cais- %J 
son that touched the ship were^ hoi- \ 



THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


130 

lowed out, and a heavy fire hose 
was laid in this groove and padded 
with carpet Water was pumped 
into the hose to inflate it and make 
a tight fit. The whole improvisation 
worked perfectly After the caisson 
had been pumped dry, the riveters 
were able to go down into it and 
begin their repairs 
One day, after being lowered to 
inspect the job, the diver sent up 
the emergency signal When his 
helmet was removed, his face was 
deadly white “The ghost is ham- 
mering inside the hulP” he ex- 
claimed The next morning the 
riveters refused to go down From 
their sullen ranks came a curious 
individual with a stovepipe hat — 
Professor Thomas, bv profession a 
spirit medium He assured the en- 
gineer that the spectral riveter was 
present “both in body and spirit ” 
Captain Paton hastened down the 
shaft He returned without a word 
but drew Renwick aside and whis- 
pered* “1 heard it Something is 
pounding the hulP” Renwick and 
the skipper inspected the entire 
bilge of the great ship and confirmed 
the sound of banging, from below 
the water line Paton got into a 
skiff and rowed round the ship A 
few feet under water he spied a 
heavy swivel striking the ship’s side 
as she oscillated in the swell The 
swivel was made fast and the med- 
ium sent packing 
The repairs were completed after 
a dead loss of four months — and 
•Remvick’s bill was $350,000 


(jfyOfOOo) The company was deeper 
in debt than ever 

^^ 5 he Great Eastern continued to 
lose money, so early in 1864 the 
companv was bankrupted and the 
ship again offered for auction It 
was bought bv none other than 
Daniel Gooch himself — for ^25,000 
He had been m touch with Cyrus 
Field, an American financier dedi- 
cated to a grand obsession a tele- 
graph line acros*? the Atlantic. 

Field’s company had lost 
000 on unsuccessful attempts to Ly 
a cable on the ocean floor The 
Great Eastern^ having betrayed 
three corporations with a total bank- 
ruptcy score ot ^1,000,000, was 
twice the financial flop that Field 
was The resolute American decided 
to put the two failures together and 
make a success Gooch offered his 
white elephant free of charge if she 
failed to lay the cable, in return for 
^50,000 in cable stock if she suc- 
ceeded Field agreed and the great 
iron ship was squared away for an 
attempt to lay a line of telegraphic 
cable on the bottom of the sea from 
Ireland to Newfoundland 

In July 1865 the vessel headed out 
from the Irish coast, the black line 
of cable unreeling into the sea. The 
cable, a little over an inch thick, 
was colled in three gigantic tanks 
that had replaced saloons, cabins 
and holds A funnel and two of the 
ten boilers were also removed to 
make stowage room. Both Gooch 
and Field were aboard, and reports 



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THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


iSA 

of progress were telegraphed over 
the lengthening line to Ireland and 
thence to London. The brain centre 
of the expedition was a blacked-out 
testing room on the ship where 
electricians sat in constant watch 
over then big testing instrument 
If Its pinpoint of light misbehaved, 
it meant a fault in the cable wrap- 
ping allowing current to escape, or 
a break. 

A fault occurred during the first 
night, 84 miles out To bring in 
the line was a delicate 10b, but when 
ten miles of cable were recovered 
the fault was found A iwo-inch 
sliver of wire was driven through 
the tarred manila wrapping 

After this, things went well for a 
few days. But on the seventh day 
the testing room reported the cur- 
rent was leaking entirely into the 
sea. Once more mile after mile of 
line was brought in, while men felt 
the slimv wire with their hands to 
find the flaw For 26 hours the cap- 
tain and first officer stayed on the 
bridge, deftly manceuvring the ship 
to avoid straining the cable 

The recovered lengths of cable 
finally revealed a piece of iron 
driven through it, its end suspici- 
ously bright, as if cut with nippers 
There were Irishmen working in 
the cable tanks; could one of them 
have seen it h*s duty to obstruct an 
English enterprise^ The crew sus- 
pected of sabotage was transferred 
to deck duty, and trusted men were 
posted over the new tankmen. 

TJ^e Great Eastern crossed the 


halfway mark. And at dawn on 
August 2 the sabotage theory was 
exploded Cyrus Field himself was 
on watch when the new accident 
occurred “There goes a piece of 
wire*” a tankman yelled. The cable 
was snaring loose wire from the 
funnelling apparatus through which 
it was passing 

The damaged section had already 
passed into the sea As the crew 
sought to haul it back, there was a 
sudden )erk, caused perhaps by the 
ship The cable, now 1,186 miles 
long, snapped and its end sank to 
the bottom of the ocean 

The Great Eastern retraced her 
path to the shallower part of the 
ocean known as Telegraph Ridge. 
A grapnel line was let out, and in a 
few hours there were indications 
that bottom had been touched, 
about three miles down 

The following morning a heavy 
strain was registered on the grap- 
pling line Was it the cable? The 
grapnel line was pieced together of 
fioo-foot lengths ]oined by shackles 
and swivels By early afternoon 
most of It had been hauled in when 
suddenly a swivel pm gave way. 
Line, grapnel and cable — if it was 
the cable — sank to the ocean floor. 

Fog enveloped the ship as the 
crew marked the spot with a big 
red buoy anchored with three miles 
of the cable itself. A second grapnel 
was rigged The fog persisted 
through four days and nights, while 
the ship drifted and shoals of por- 
poises larked round her. On the fifth 





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day there was a peep of sun and 
the second grapnel was lowered. 

Again they struck something and 
began reeling in. By eight next 
evening they had hauled a mile of 
grappling line aboard — when the 
swivel parted exactly as before 
Heartbroken but indomitable, the 
officers ordered another try Mean- 
while, a high wind had risen and 
the great ship rolled uneasily On 
the rainswept deck smiths ham- 
mered out new shackles and swivels. 
The red buoy marking the spot of 
the first failure was lost on the 
seventh morning, but miraculously 
found the same afternoon The 
eighth day was clear and sunny, 
and the third grapnel was lowered 
This time the Great Eastern 
glided over the cable without mak- 
ing contact, though the grapnel line 
became entangled and was lost. An- 
other line was prepared next day, 
only to part when it was being pull- 
ed back with the cable, presumably, 
in its grip. All available line having 
been used up, the big ship gloomily 
set course for home, defeated But 
even on the homeward journey 
Cyrus Field was busy with his en- 
gineers drawing up the prospectus 
for a new cable-laying company. 

Y THE SPRING OF 1 866 thc Cable 
tanks of the Great Eastern were 
loaded again with more than 2,000 
miles of the precious wire. Once 
more the vessel headed for New- 
foundland. This time the cable 
.whirred smoothly into thc ocean. 


On July 27, 1866, thc cable was 
carried ashore to the Hearts Content 
relay station on Newfoundland, 
from which lines already ran to 
Canada and the United States. Thc 
next day Queen Victoria tele- 
graphed greetings to President 
Johnson Wall Street brokers read 
the closing quotations from thc 
City, the Pans Bourse and the Brus- 
sels gram market 
It was a happy ship that steamed 
home to receive a nation’s applause. 
Daniel Gooch was made a baronet, 
and the ship’s captain was knighted. 

^HE FOLLOWING YEAR a grOUp 

of French capitalists chartered thc 
Great Eastern and reconverted ‘ it 
into a passenger ship Napoleon III 
was producing an ambitious world 
exhibition called Le Grand Oriental^ 
and the great non ship seemed an 
ideal carry-all to speed myriads of 
rich Americans to Pans 
A thousand artisans went to work 
knocking out the cable tanks and 
building in elegant accommodation 
for 3,000 passengers Thc reconver- 
sion cost 1 00,000, but thc entre- 
preneurs expected to earn millions. 

The Great Eastern s new venture, 
however, was a failure. On her first 
run from New York only 19 1 
Americans made the voyage to 
France. It was the last time New 
York was to see the Wonder of the 
Waves. Soon thc Great Eastern was 
back in Liverpool, with £20^000 in 
unpaid fitting bills charged to Sir 
Daniel Gooch, and with thc crew 





THE GREAT IRON SHIP 


clamouring loudly for their wages- 
Fresh money was presently found 
to reconvert the ship for yet another 
cable - laying expedition Julius 
Reuter, of the German banking 
family, had plans which were ulti- 
mately to make him the father of 
international press associations 
Once more workmen ripped out 
the costly staterooms and saloons 
to make way for cable Command 
of the ship fell to a portly little dy- 
namo of a man, Robert Halpin, hei 
ninth captain. To Halpin, as much 
as to Cyrus Field, the world owes 
the advent of international cables 
He had been first officer in the ear- 
lier cable-laying expeditions and re- 
mained master of die Great Eastern 
in her busy years to follow. 

In 1869 Reuter gave him the task 
of laying the longest cable ever at- 
tempted, 2,584 nautical miles The 
undertaking was marked by now- 
familiar troubles; but on the 22nd 
day the cable was spliced at Mique- 
lon off Canada, connecting it with 
Brest, in France. The Great East- 
ern^ under Halpin, v/as to submerge 
three more transatlantic lines, and 
repair four in mid-ocean. It also laid 
the British India cable from Bom- 
bay to Aden across the Arabian Sea, 
a distance matching the awesome 
span of the Brcst-Miquelon line 
In 1874, however, a specially 
built cable ship, the Faraday^ was 
launched and the Great Eastern was 
superseded as a cable-layer. She 
was then brought back home and 
mooifed off Milford Haven 


HE Milford harbour board was 
confronted with a clumsy iron reef, 
blocking the port They shunted 
the great iron ship here and there. 
Tourists came to see the sleeping 
monster, but local people petitioned 
Parliament to relieve them of the 
unwieldy lodger 

For years the huge ship lay idle 
and unwanted. In 1881 she was put 
up for auction, but the highest bid 
— 24,000 — was rejected. Four years 
later she was finally knocked down 
for ^26,000 for use as a coaling hulk 
at Gibraltar But the new owners’ 
plans fell through and in 1887 an 
offer of 16,000 was received from 
a firm of metal dealers, who bought 
the ship for scrap The breaking up 
began in May 1889, 51 years and 
three months after her launching. 

The Great Eastern had challenged 
a generation of mechanical minds. 
She now presented one final prob- 
lem how to take her apart It was 
finally solved with the invention of 
the breaker’s big iron ball. A der- 
rick was erected over the ship and 
a stationary steam engine raised a 
heavy iron ball to a spar It was 
released by a trigger The impact 
shocked the surrounding country- 
side, but It did start the rivets. 

After 18 months the workmen 
reached the double bottom. One 
day they were breaching a compart- 
ment in the inner shell when a 
shriek went up that stopped all 
work. The wreckers had found in- 
side the ship’s shell the skeletons of 
a riveter and his boy helper. 




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By Clifford Searle 

I ’m a Railway Signalman, and I work at a Terminal 
Station in Bradford. One evening, I was on night shift, 
and trying to fight off sleep The signal was down for the 
next train to come in, and soon it rumbled past me and 
drew safely into the terminus. I remember sighing, and 
thinking of the driver going home. There was still the 
whole night left before my work would be finished 
I had a pile of newspapers in front of me, but I’d read 
most of them, and knew they wouldn’t help keep me 
awake. 1 had a book, too, but it was long, and I felt I 
couldn’t concentrate on it as I knew I should soon have 
to break off reading when the next tram passed. Then I 
found a copy of The Reader’s Digest. One of my mates 
had brought it round for me. Among the ‘‘perks” of 
working on the railways are the magazines left behind in 
the trains. They’re collected by the shunting staff, read by 
them and their families, and then passed to all the other 
men along the line, signalmen, locomotive men, guards 
and porters, we all get a share. 

I was still reading that Reader’s Digest when the 
morning came ! I thought at the time that my night turn 
had passed quicker than any I could remember. And I 
certainly didn’t feel tired — T suppose because I had been 
kept interested from the very first article 1 read. 

All this was nine years ago, and I have been taking the 
Digest regularly since then. I decided I couldn’t rely on 

{Conitmed on inside back cover) 




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MALARIA- -Quinine, the Bitter Enemy 


I 'HE first Wife of the Fourth Count 
I of Chincon, the Spanish Vicero> of 
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vent her from going down to posicnt> 
as the internationally accepted synonym 
for the Peruvian “Fever Tree" 

Some time in 1640, ne>^s reached 
Europe that the Countess ot C hincon 
had been cured of her intermittent ievei 
by taking the powdered bark of a 
Peruvian tiee A year or so later, the 
magic bark itself appeared on the con- 
tinent In 1643, It had passed into 
letterpiess via Hey den Around 16'^5, 
It bad found its way into England 
For nearly a century the bark went 
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cincnona to peipetuate the legend of the 
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Centuries later, so. neone, poring over 
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Except for a sore throat and an occa- 
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physically Peru failed to do her any 
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The earliest shipments to reach Europe 
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rcmiiirulcr ot the 17th ccnlurv and the 
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iriileis tl sorted to the' time-honoured 
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levers rrsponded to it Svdenham and 
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P41 ) did the same in Italy 
! or nearly two centuries the bark was 
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chemists extracted from it two alkaloids 
called cinchonine and quinine the latter 
being the mam antimalarial principle 
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tviannv of malaria though its cause re- 
mained as obscure as m the Hippocratic 
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did awdv with the traditional therapy 
ol bleeding purging and sweating and 
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tarantula 

1 rom Its very miioduciion doctors 
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Binz, in 1868, thought it produced a 
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Laveran (IX45-l922i found the answer 
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O ?62 


\()LUME 64 Readei^i Digest MAY 195 

An article a day of endwing significance, in condensed permanent boo^et form 


CANADA’S 

URANIUM BOOM 


By Rotiidd Schiller 



:j 


\M i>A\ 111 tlu summer oi 
1952 (iilbat LaHinc, who 
IS almost a legendarv figure 
III (\madian mining circles* re- 
ceived a radiogram in 1 oronto trom 
a voting geologist, Albert Zccmel, 
at Lake Athabask<i in northern Sas 
katehewan “Cainic ijuiek,’’ the mes- 
sa e lead, “Lve shot an elephant 
Although La Bine is aware that 
there are no pachyderms in the 
northtTn wilds, he flew immediate 1\ 
to Lake Athabaska Zeemel strap- 
ped a Cyeigei eountei to his boss's 
back, clapped a stt of ealph^)nes on 
Ins head .ind tondiuted him to 
Oatkingstone Peninsula For three 
davs, wherever he walked, LaHine 
he.ird a great craciding like a thou 
sand eggs frying Sometimes it 
faded to a whisper, but it never 

Trt.isuit of (irtnt Bccir 1 akt 
Ine Re.ultr’s OiKtst, Octobei l ‘)19 


'The chain reaction started when 
young Albert Zeemel pulled the 
I Ciinnar hole at AthahashjZ 

stopped Finally he took the phones 
fiom Ills tingling ears and exulted. 
'‘It's an elephant, all right 

“Flcphant" was LaBine’s code 
name tor a big uranium strike He 
had sent Zeemel to the Athabaska 
region -wdiich he considered prime 
'‘elephant countn " — to hunt for 
one But he had never expected a 
discovers of such magnitude The 
claim, regisUied in the name of 
LaBine’s companv, (Tunnar Gold 
Mines, Ltd , is among the richest 
uranium finds vet made anywhere. 
Albert Zeemel received almost half 
a million dollars in cash and shares 
-lax tree —for his find. 

News of the discovery set off a 


Condensed fron. Mat lean’s Masazine 



rks READSR^S DtGteST 


chain of reactions. In Toronto Gun- 
nar stock jumped from 40 cents to 
$11 a share In Washington Atomic 
Energy Commissioners, faced with 
a serious shortage of uranium, 
breathed a sigh ot relief 

The Gunnar claim lav so close to 
the surface that most of it could he 
mined bv open cast methods <it a 
fraction of the cost of underground 
mining The strike swelled what 
had been a mere trickle of prospec- 
tors to Athabaska into an avalanche 
Undiscouraged bv geologists’ warn- 
ings that the chance of making a 
successful find wms onl\ one in 
1,000, shopkeepers, farmers, ac- 
countants, cooks— some from as far 
away as South Africa— swarmed 
into the bush 

To keep them alive and supplied, 
the Saskatchewan provincial govern- 
ment laid out the town of Uranium 
City, only six miles from Beaver 
lodge, the communitv that had 
grown up round the Ginadian 
Government-owned Eldorado Mm 
ing & Refining Co The first place 
of business was the Claim Recorder’s 
Office, followed bv a general store, 
a garage and a liquor store 

It was somewhat baffling to the 
old professionals who went to Atha- 
baska to find that uranium hunting, 
unlike other prospecting, requires 
little skill, experience or geological 
knowledge It helps to know that 
the ore is usually found in rock with 
a red discoloration or that a fiakv, 
yellowish oxide sometimes appears 
on Its surface But apart from these 


May 

bits of knowledge, a Geiger 
counter is all that is necessary Still, 
most of the prospectors found noth- 
ing and soon went broke 

A few lucky people, however, 
have made strikes without even a 
(icigcr They have simply ‘ tied on ’ 
their claims alongside others that 
have been propcilv prospected 
Aeroplane pilot johnny ISVsbitt, be- 
tween flights, tied on to a property 
next to Bcaverlodgc that is w^orth a 
fortune Three Irish bncklavers sold 
ten tK-on claims for $500,000 

La’^t autumn, curious about the 
wild stones filtering down fr(>m the 
Noith, I flew to Athabaska for a 
look round 

Uianium ('it\, unlike the govern- 
ment's model town of Beavcriodge, 
IS a raw, drab-look mg pioneer settle- 
ment that stands like an open gash 
in the hush 1 here is no plumbing, 
drinking water, brought up from 
the lake, sells for $1 a barrel Its 
three main streets arc dust bowls in 
elrv weather, cjuagmircs when it 
rains And it is impossible, in this 
country teeming with game and 
fish, to find anything in the U^wn’s 
restaurants except finne'd salmon 
and preserved beef 

For the most part, the populace 
of U-Citv feeds on feverish enthusi- 
asm and lumours of fabulous uian- 
ium strikes It is impossible by their 
clothes CT manners to tell million- 
aires from miners There are few 
middle-aged people to be seen the 
inhabitants are likely to be old vet- 
erans, like Jock McMcekcn, editor 



J954 


CANADM^ VltANlUM BOOM 


of Ithc Uranium Era, who has fol- 
lowed mining booms across Canada 
for years, or they are youngsters 
as remarkable as Beverly Auten, the 
.ittractive 25-ycar-old who, single- 
handed, runs the brokerage house 
where 50,000 shares of stock have 
been traded in a day Watching her 
in action, it is difficult to realize 
that she was born a deaf-mute and 
did not uttei a word until she was 
12 Before thcie was a bank in the 
town, HtverK used to leave her cash 


turned to storekeeping, unsuccess- 
fully. Finally he gathered up his 
meagre supply of trade goods and 
his SIX children and moved to 
Uranium City 

Setting up a tent shop, he began 
to do thousands of dollars’ worth of 
l)usiness a day Accepting claims in 
lieu of pavmcnt, he accumulated 
some 600 claims He sold 200 of 
them for $210,000 Last June he 
chartered a plane and took his 
family to the coronation in London, 




on a table in the brokerage olFice at 
in dit with a light shining on it The 
money was never touched [lawless- 
ness in this tronticr community is 
almost non-existent 
Perhaps one of the best-known 
citi/ens in town is a sad-faced little 
Englishman w'ho three years ago re- 
garded himself as ‘‘the unluckicst 
man in (Canada ’ He had come to 
the Dominion 20 years before to 
farm, but his c’ops were either 
burned up by drought o, eaten by 
grasshoppers He switched to trap 
ping, but upped over his canoe and 
lost his entire first year’s catch He 



w^here they w^erc all invited to Buck- 
ingham Palace But he is more sad- 
faced than e\er now under the iin- 
.iccustomed burden of wealth He 
spends much of his lime talking 
nostalgirally of the days when he 
was broke 

The social and business centre of 
life in U-Cat\ is the toyvn’s one beer 
parlour More local syndicates and 
companies are formed here, more 
<.laims bought and sold, than in 
Wail Street A man would no more 
think of enteiing the beer parlour 
w'lthout a pocketful of ore samples 
than without his trousers. Sooner or 


THE READER^S t>icksf 


iatcr a visitor must expect to have a 
handful of stones thrust at him and 
be asked to admire their rich uran- 
ium content “I can make (junnar 
look like a rabbit-hole if you help 
me gel the money for drilling " 

Anyone, citizen or not, may go 
prospecting in Athabaska provided 
he buys a miner’s licence, costing $5 
and a map showing unclaimed ter- 
ritory. The only way to reach the 
unclaimed area is to charter a sea 
plane The pilot agrees to pick vou 
up at a specified date 1:1 is casual 
promise is held to be sacred obli- 
gation in the North, where i man 
can’t survive long once Ins supfilics 
run out 

Arriving at his destination, the 
prospector paces olT plots i '^oo tect 
square, affixes his name and licence 
number to “claim posts” at each of 
the four corners He has 15 da vs, 
plus one additional dav for each 
ten miles from Uranium Citv, to 
register his claims at the Recorder’s 
Office Every prospector ma\ regis 
ter nine such claims for himself and 
SIX more for each of two “proxies” 
— a total of 21 The registration fee 
IS $5 tor each personal claim, $10 
for each proxv Unless Si 00 worth 
of work has I)ecn done on a claim r'* 
a year, title must be renewed an- 
nually 

Mine employees are iisuallv 
brought in under 18-month con- 
tracts, with air fare, food and shelter 
guaranteed Labourers make $2 50 
(nearly 18/) an hour, skilled work- 
ers several times that Twenty-five- 


ycar-old driller Mike Schmcrchyn- 
ski earned $1,176 one month last 
vear without exhausting himself 
With only $5 a day exacted for 
board and lodging, and little else on 
which to spend money, a man can 
bank most of his pay — provided he 
doesn’t drink it up or gamble it 
a wav 

Athal)aska’s prosj^enty seems as 
siircd at least until 1965, for the 
U S Atomic Energy Commission 
has a contract with the Dominion 
Clovcrnmcnt to purchase all the 
uranium oxide pniduccd in (Canada 
until that date After that, no one 
can acturatclv predict whit may 
happen The AEC' is cx[)crimenting 
with “bret cling reactors” which, if 
suctessful, will create at least as 
much fissionable material as they 
use u[), conceivablv bringing both 
the price and demand for new uran- 
ium down sharply Or a new fission 
able — or fusionablc — material may 
be developed that is cheaper and 
nujrc cflnicnt than uranium 
None of these possibilities worries 
the folks in Athabaska Ai esti- 
IIK itcd $f>,( Kj(),o()() was spent in ex- 
ploration last summer, double that 
amount is exj)ectcd this summer 
Nearly 150 mining companies are 
digging or ready to start Explo- 
ration IS still going on, and news 
that someone has “pulled a good 
hole” will empty the town of pros- 
pectors in a matter of hours No- 
body doubts that there are still “ele- 
phants” around, and everyone wants 
to be the man to shoot the next one 




liv hdwpi W A\ 1 calc 

M ut(h 20 It IS otficialh 

- spring! But what an anti- The ivorld will never starve 
climax ! (iList-clrivcn rain is slashing for want of wonders, 
the trees under a sullen sk\ , the air Chesierton 

IS raw and chill I recall someone’s 

observation that the first da\ ol and holds as much of the territory 

spring and the tirsi spring da\ aie as possible 

n alwavs the same thing The air rings with their wild 

I’o me spring was marked this xylophone calling It is an exultant, 

year by the return of the male led- jubilant call, a fitting voice for a 

wing blackbirds, who came back season of flowing sap and awaken- 

with a rush a month ago Almost ing life 

overnight the drear stretches of our March 2 ^ 1 he time of baby 
winter swamp were filled with life squiirels is at hand Each year about 

Everywhere, with scarlet epaulets this time I see grey scjuirrels strip- 

flash mg, the blackbirds have been ping off the dry bark of cedar 

singing and darting about, chasing boughs and carrying it away to their 

each other, shooting up like rockets, nesting holes And now 1 also sec 

whirling like Catherine- wheels Be- them carrying bits of newspapers, 

fore the females arrive, each male I wonder if there is some un- 
stakes out a homestead, and then taught wisdom that leads the squir- 

with spectacular acrobatics defends rcls to the cedar tree, and makes 

Selections from ‘Circle of the Sea\ous 



^ THE RBAIfER^S mOBST May 


them prefer newsprint to other 
paper. Cedar protects clothes from 
moths, and newspapers are some- 
times used for the same purpose 
Do they also help keep a squirrel's 
nest free from vermin^ 

March 26 At sunset I walk along 
the swamp path. Only a few weeks 
ago the frozen earth appeared hard 
and dead, yet now I see the begin- 
ning of a flood of life that nothing 
can halt 

Because growth in plants is a 
gradual thing, we often o\trlook 
the power that is contained in the 
rising shoot and expanding seed I 
once saw peas, planted in a flower- 
pot, lift and thrust aside a heavy 
sheet of plate glass laid over the 
top. 

March 28 In the breeding season 
the starlings' mimicking of other 
birds reaches its peak One male 
has been sitting in mv siKer maple 
today giving the calls of such varied 
species as the crow, catbird, meadow 
lark and killdcer, and even the 
quacking of a flying mallard duck 
Also, a neighbour’s child has been 
blowing a shrill police whistle, and 
now the starling imitates that 
sound, too— a little softer but un- 
mistakable 

March As I walked up through 
the old orchard late this afternoon 
I looked back and caught the dif- 
ferent shades of green in new grass 
clumps and young leaves, all sud- 
denly brilliant in the sun, which had 
just emerged from behind a cloud 
In the same way, the peculiar il- 


lumination before a summer thun- 
derstorm brings out special details 
and alters a whole landscape. As I 
stood there, an old saying took on 
added meaning “to see it in a new 
light ’’ 

April 4 A long soaking rain be- 
fore daybreak, and earthworms are 
stranded everywhere on the inhos- 
pitable cement of pavements, in im- 
minent danger of early birds or dry- 
ing sun So my moining walk is 
slowed by stops to put earthworms 
back on the ground where they be- 
long People probably wonder whai 
treasure lam finding when they see 
me stoop so often 

And, in a wav, I am dealing in 
treasure A silver fox mav sell at 
premium price, a race horse may be 
insured for a small fortune Yet the 
world’s most valuable animal is the 
earthworm — a humble burrower, 
nature’s ploughman * 

Apnl 7 y At 6 30 this morning I 
watch a velvet-coated bumblebee 
begin hunting for a nest site I see 
her investigate every possible open- 
ing near a pile of mouldering fence 
rails Zigzagging, hovering, alight- 
ing, she peers into a rusting tin can 
in the weeds, explores under a tree 
root, in a knot-hole She investigates 
the region round my shoe, and then 
along a bit of board lying in the 
grass She will continue searching 
for hours, and days, and may con- 
sider thousands of sites before she 
decides where to establish her nest. 
She is the founder of an insect city, 
and the fate of her colony depends 



,954 SPRING 

to a great extent upon the wisdom 
of her choice 

Apjil 21 Just before I start for a 
walk in the misty dawn this morn- 
ing, the radio is filling thf^ an waves 
with the troubles of the world But 
out-of-doors the news is good All of 
nature is a going concern The busi- 
ness of spring IS prospering I stand 
foi a long time beside the swamp 
stream in a fairs land setting of low- 
fi ing mist glowing and tinted with 
the pink of the sunrise Such a sight 
sets us to rights again For the dis- 
turbed mind, the still beauty of the 
dawn IS nature’s finest balm 

April 22 This IS the time of 
robins bewitched People write nic 
letters about robins that peck end- 
lessly at shinv hubcaps, that spend 
their da\s fluttering against win- 
dow panes and pecking at the glass 
Have the birds gone crazv^ What 
ails them ^ 

Wherever robins arc nesting, the 
same thing is taking place Males 
are defending their nesting terri- 
tories (Pitching sight of his own 
reflection in a window or a shiny 
metal surface, the male robin dashes 
^o drive the intruder a wav He may 
battle this phantom rival for days 
on end 

Only windows with darkened 
rooms behind them, turning the 
glass into a mirror, attract the birds 
Merely turn on a light in the room 
or hang a white cloth in the win- 
dow and the bird's reflection will 
disappear 

April 29 Rain in the night, and 


TO SUMMER 

this morning the fallen white petals 
of the pear trees lie scattered across 
my path like confetti Mingled witihi 
the gre> rain has been the green rain 
of descending maple flowers as well. 
They dot the pavements and form 
vcllow-green windrows at the edges 
of the [iLiddles Leaf-fall in the au- 
tumn and flower-fall in the spring! 

May 2 Someone dumped the 
limbs and trunk of a willow tree be- 
side the road and they have been 
Iv mg there a good part of the winter. 
Today I noticed that innumerable 
spinuts have pushed out all along 
tht length of one c'f the discarded 
logs 'rhe sight recalled the experi- 
ence of a man 1 know who left 
rustic willow chairs out in his yard 
all w'lnter In the spring he discov- 
ered that cverv chair had taken root! 

May / j This evening I saw the 
spectacular aeiial mating of a pair 
of tree swallows The birds new 
wildly, almost like swifts Then, 50 
or 60 feet above the ground, the 
swallows met face to face, fluttered 
for a moment, and then, with 
wuiigs wide-spread to break their de- 
scent, dropped straight downwards 
through the air for 40 feet or more! 
Thev were hardly ten feet above 
the ground when they disunited, tc 
rise up and up again into the sunset 
sky 

May 18 Through my glasses, J 
watched a female redwing working 
at a bulrush stem floating in th< 
water, stripping away fibres for hei 
nest But fibres and other time- 
ho loured construction materials a« 



s the READEl^S DIGEST May 


being supplemented these days with 
a surprising numhci of model n odds 
and ends Near here, a wood thrush 
made use of toni-iip bus tiekcts, m 
Other wood thrush, ncstinir near a 
refieshmeni stand in a [>ark, sol 
Iccted dise'arded pop-bottle stiaws 
Small nails earned trom i building 
site to a nesting box, torined tne 
steel nest of a wren while a red- 
start made Its nest entiieK at in- 
sulating material 
May 2jf All along the shallow 
eastern edge of Milburn Pond the 
sunfish ha\e be^tn se raping awa\ the 
silt to proMele bire, clean p^tehes 
gravel for spawning- a sign thit 
the w'aters temperature has risen 
to 68 degrees ()\er eae'h of these 
scoured p.itebes was guaidian fish 
that rushed towMrels e\(r\ inter 
loper \\ here two piiJus over 
lapped, the guardi.itis kept rushing 
back and forth in a seesa\\ l)<ittle 
The fiirv of the attaeker waned 
quickh as it adsanetd into the (it 
fender's territorv, while its eourige 
seemed to mount w'hen it wms piir 
sued into its own 'fhas the\ eon 
tinued as long as 1 w.is at the pond 
All the defenders wer^ males 
They build the nest, guard it, fer 
tilize the cggs--e)fren laid b\ s< vcral 
females — and dcfenel the \oung th.^t 
, hatch there among the pebbles 
I June I Outside a littlr after five 
on this first morning of June 'Phe 
mae'hiner of nature, with its wnnds 
and dews and dawns and morning 
mists, produeTs poetry as well as 
seasons and growth and change 


The functioning of nature’s cogs 
has created dew-drops and veils of 
111 mi nous mist caught among the 
l>ulrushe's Ik^fore the w’ork cf the 
da\, taste ihe poetr\ of the day ’ 

As 1 crossed the hillside, a small 
patch of di\, vellow grass caught 
mv Cvc C'arcfulK I pulled aside the 
grass and the soft gre\ blanket of 
fur 1 found beneath, and exposetl 
the little ears of a nestful of hahy 
011)1^1*- Jii^l as <.artfull\ I leplaeed 
the fur en\erkr ind the grass In a 
hull w'hil( , now, 1 will see labbits 
hopp'ing about mv liillside 

liinc ^ One of the grc\ stjuiriels 
tlu't shares our gulden is using a 
eiuleh It inpired a hind leg some- 
how and, although jt gets about on 
three kgs faiiK well, wdien I throw 
It a pc unit it is un.ibit to sit up to 
eat It So the erijipkd sc|uiiiel car 
ries Its nut to i hraneh that fell from 
a (King iiiaple and braces itself 
agaiiiet til it Thus supported it can 
Cell Its nut sitting up, in the tradi 
tional scjuirrel Kisliioii 

June 12 To till salt marsh at sun- 
set, to walness again one of the most 
ancient drimas of the earth the 
corning of the king crabs to the shal- 
lows to fertilize and leave their eggs 
Plus IS the great annual event in the 
lives of these “hor^efoots,” as the 
havmen call them 'Phev are among 
the oldest dwellers in the sea, crea- 
tines that have lived on and on after 
some r>f their early contemporaries 
have become fossils 
Moment by moment the water 
creeps ahead as the tide runs in. 



FROM SPRING TO SUMMER 


^954 

Shadowy at first, the crabs appear 
from the murky water, they come 
linked together, the smaller male 
behind. Farther and farther they 
push up into the shallows to deposit 
the translucent little globes of then 
eggs These events, as I watch them 
in the twilight of this June day, are 
the same as they were a hundred 
million years before the dinosaurs 
In an unbroken chain they link the 
Atomic Age with the primeval 
world 

June iq Glistening globes of 
w'hite, each about the size of a pea, 
shine out from the grass tangles of 
the hillside this moining Each mass 
of froth, like beaten egg-white, is 
produced by a tiny immature insect 
inside, using a mechanism un- 
known elsewhere in all nature For 
upwards of ten million years these 
insects, commonU known as frog- 
hoppers, ha\e literal! V been saving 
their lives by blowing bubbles Safe 
within Its little foam castle, the in- 
sect lies moist and hidden, sucking 
sap from the grass stem Later it de- 
velops wings and flies away, a non- 
descript brownish little insect that 
is rarely noticed Its gieat achieve 
ment, its claim to fame, is this shin- 
ing house of foam that is produced 
during Its earliest days 


June 21 This is the hinge day of 
the seasons Today the yearly tide of 
light reaches its flood Tomorrow it 
will begin the long rollback to the 
dark days of December I heard 
robins singing this morning shortly 
after four, Daylight Saving Time, 
and they are still singing at nine 
o'clock at night A robin uses up all 
the da\ light, even on this longest 
day of the year 

In the later sunset of this final day 
of spring, my wife and 1 walk to 
the bay As we stand there, m the 
quiet of the evening and with the 
smell of the sea all round us, a faint 
mist forms in the air Twilight here 
IS doiiblv impressive, for we are face 
to face with twin mysteries — the 
mystery of the sea and the mystery 
of the night 

Thus ends another spring — rich 
in the small cvervday events of the 
earth as all springs arc for those who 
find delight in simple things. The 
institutions of men alter and dis- 
integrate Rut in the endless repeti- 
tions of nature- -in the recurrence 
of spring, in the coming of new 
birds to sing the ancient songs, in 
the continuity of life and the web 
of the living — here we find the solid 
foundation that underlies at once 
the past, the present and the future. 


I L UH HEALTH, everything is a source of pleasure, without it, nothing 
else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable It follows that the greatest of follies 
is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be, 
for gam, advancement, learning, or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting 
sensual pleasures ~s 



A German wartime rocket fuel now being put to amazing peacetime uses 


-JVav Chemical Giant 


Bv Harland Manchester 


OR YE\RS a chemical called 
hydrazine, which looks like 
water and smells a bit like 
ammonia, was considered a mere 
laboratory curiosity Then, during 
World War II, German chemists 
made it into a rocket fuel of tre- 
mendous power In so doing they 
opened the door to a treasure house, 
for hydra/ine is now working mir- 
acles in a dozen fields 
One of Its derivatives is a promis- 
ing new TB drug Another retards 
growth when sprayed on grass, so 
that you don’t have to mow so 
often. 

Hydrazine’s use as a rocket fuel 
began in 1943 when a strange, tor- 
pedo-shaped aircraft was launched 
near Bremen It sped through the 
sky like a shooting star, emitting 
an unearthly roar After this test 
flight the jubilant pilot reported in- 
credible climbing power and a speed 
of 640 miles per hour 
This v^as the world’s first opera- 
tional rocket plane, the Messer- 
schmitt 163-B. The Nazis built ^00 
of them, and with them took savage 

10 


toll of British and American air- 
craft during the last months of 
the war 

When the war W'as over, a cap- 
tured “163” and the plane’s (German 
designer, Dr Alexander Lippisch, 
were taken to Muroc Lake, ('ah- 
forma, for further experimentation 
Britain also got a “1^3,” and so did 
the Russians, along with tools, dies 
and technicians Copied and im- 
proved, the “little terror” has revo- 
lutionized aerial warfare Mean- 
while the chemical that fuelled it 
has gone its separate way 

Hydrazine is made from cheap 
and plentiful materials — ammonia, 
chlorine and caustic soda — but the 
process is long and mvc^lved and 
the prewar cost was prohibitive By 
last year the price had been slashed 
to a fraction of the old cost, and it is 
believed that with big tonnage pro- 
duction It mav be cut still more. 
Every price cut makes more uses 
possible 

One of the most dramatic deriva- 
tives of hydrazine is the new TB 
drug, isoniazid, created in the 


Condensed from Chemistry 




HYDRAZINE— NEW CHEMICAL GIANT 


American laboratories of E. R. 
Squibb & Sons and HofTmann-La 
Roche, Incorporated, and also by 
the Bayer Company of Germany, 
all of whom were searching inde- 
pendently for TB cures. Without 
knowledge of the others’ work, each 
group tested the drug on laboi atory 
animals which had been given 
tuberculosis, and each obtained 
striking results 

While not all the answers are 
known vet, doctors now see in 
isoniazid a valuable aid in TB treat- 
ment It IS cheaper than other TB 
drugs, and is remarkably safe to use 

Other derivatives of the chemical 
arc being tested to combat other ali- 
ments One shows promise in reduc- 
ing blood pressure, another is cflcc- 
tive in clearing up urinary-tract in- 
fections, and a third seems effective 
in combating the poultrv disease, 
coccidiosis 

Another hydra/ine derivative, 
MH 40, was one of several hundred 
new chemical compounds developed 
in America for testing on plants 
When a greenhouse tomato plant 
was wetted with MH-40 it devel- 
oped into a sc]uat dwarf This effect 
was so striking that it suggested 
endless useful possibilities Soon the 
experimental greenhouses were full 
of dwarfed plants of manv varieties 
A jungle gras^ which normally 
grows waist-high stopped at about 
an inch after being treated with the 
new compound 

The first large-scale use of Mil 40 
came three years ago when 250 acres 


// 

of road centre-strips and verges were 
sprayed in Connecticut Frequent 
mowing of these grass areas is 
expensive MH-40 slowed down 
growth so drastically that only two 
mowings were needed all spring 
.ind summer, while untreated areas 
had to be mowed 19 times 

As a “sleeping pill” for plants, 
MH 40 promises to save a lot of 
monev for farmers and consumers. 
When potatoes are kept in storage 
for a long time, sprouts draw the 
food out of the spuds and make 
them spongy and worthless. For this 
MH-40 has been tried with remark- 
able results Traces of the chemical 
permeate down to the tubers and 
put the sprout bud' to sleep for an 
entire winter The treated potatoes 
arc safe to eat and many growers 
arc now successfull\ using the 
chemical 

Spraved on onion plants before 
harvest, MH'40 will keep stored 
onions from sprouting for a year, 
and it has been used with excellent 
results on carrots, beets and turnips. 

The pioneers of Hydrazine, and ‘ 
Its sole manufacturers in this 
country are Genatosan Limited of ^ 
Loughborough They supply the 
Hydrazine for the manufacture of 1 
^ Isomaztdf the TB drug, and are < 
producing Maleic Hydrazide, the ; 
active ingredient of MH-40 Exten- ' 
sive trials are being carried out with i 
this, and it is expected it will be on 
public sale here shortly for use in > 
parks, cemeteries and on roadsides, < 
and for the control of hedges. 



t2 


THE READERS DIGEST 


Spraying the top limbs of apple 
trees with the chemical and thus dis- 
couraging upward growth has pro- 
duced semi-dwarl trees with low- 
hanging limbs from which it is 
easier to pick fruit Scientists have 
also tested MH-4() on fruit trees to 
delay blossoming until danger of 
frost IS over and to check the 
growth of runners on strawberry 
plants so as to increase the yield 
Consumers are already reaping 
benefits from the new chemical 
Crepe-rubber shoe soles are lightei 
because of a hydra/ me compound 
Introduced in the mix during manu- 
facture, It trees nitrogen gas, leav- 
ening the rubber with millions of 
tiny sealed bubbles This improved 
rubber is also used to make lighter 
and more durable life- rafts, fishing 


floats, rug underlays and insulation 
for refrigerator doors. 

A chemical based on hydrazine 
has been used for two years in sol- 
dering the radiators of certain new 
cars to prevent rust, and another 
hydrazine compound prevents cor- 
rosion when added to the water in 
the boilers of steam power plants 

British (Ylancse and its American 
affiliate have taken out 23 patents 
foi nylon like fabrics containing hy- 
drazine Thc\ are said to be more 
absorbent and therefore less clammy 
m vvaim weather than present syn- 
thetic fabrics 

Scientists predict that the real 
work of this versatile chemical has 
)ust begun, and that cheap hydra- 
zine will rcsiilt in a new bonanza of 
discovery and invention 


^•WhataRuiW^^ 

— 35 VFARs ot hobnobbing with boxing managers and lesser 

figures of the pugilistic trade. Sports Editor Dan Parker of the 
New York Daily Mirror has developed a fine tar for Manhattan’s 
ringside speech Not long ago Parker gave a health report on 
Armand Weill, manager of Heavyweight Champion Rocky Mar- 
ciano, as told by “Al” himself 

“Me blood pressure is poifick Tt was 150 vitiiolic and 98 diabolic 
The doctor said I had a coupla minor ailments and I says, ‘That’s 
funny I never woiked 111 the rjines ’ So he told me I had fallen 
archeries Since I went on that diet I ain’t got no ulsters or no 
abominable trouble I had to practickly fast for a coupla days — ]est 
a large cup of demitasse m the mornin’ and a little brought at night 
—lamb brought He said I didn’t have no sign of kocJiak trouble 
around the heart or no coroner's trombone disease Everythin’ was 
okey (lokel wit’ me gold bladder too ” 

Concluded Columnist Parker “As I looked at the healthy speci- 
men, I impulsively exclaimed ‘What a built P ’’ --Tme 



When Robert Taft died, both hts friends and his political 
opponents agreed that his country had lost a great citizen, but 
few \new the magnificent story of how the Senator faced death 


The Heroic Last Days 
OF Robert Taft 


Il\ jhan and June Rahhim 


\i \(.() Kist lamuiry 

the Luc vSciiator Roixrt 
Tatt of Ohio smiled gamclv 
as Dwight Eisenhower look the 
(Rith that made him President ol the 
United States daft had tried hcart- 
lireakingh hard to win that olhee 
tor hirnsdf I le wanted to follow his 
f'duT into the White House and 
he had dcdieattd most of his adult 
life towards that ambition Now his 
chances w’ere gone and he knew it 
Ills courage had supported him 
through more than a cju.irtcr of a 
centuiy of political activity What 
he had to say, he said If it made 
him unpopular he shrugged it ofl 
He once remaikeJ that tact was for 
people who kne\v' they were wrong 
Often his outspokenness got him 
into trouble with friend and foe 
alike, but neither public abuse nor 
private pressure could shake him 


loose fiom an opinion Quite literally 
he was a man w'ho would rather be 
right than President 

Of Taft’s poliiieal methods, one 
senator s.iid, “W’hat T.ift taught us 
wMs to Slav on the job day after day, 
ehijiping awa\ until the opposition 
erumbled 1 hat's the kind of cour- 
age Hob bad — a dogged ability to 
gi in and bear It 

Hut the real test of his courage 
was still ahead It came a few 
months later when he learned that 
he had a rare form of cancer, and 
he settled down to fight his last 
magnifieent battle— thistime against 
death 

The storv of his fatal illness begins 
wnlh a golf game In the third week 
of April, President Eisenhower was 
resting at Augusta, Georgia Taft 
flew'^ down to consult him on a poli- 
tical issue and on April 19, their 

G 


Condensed ftom This Week 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


conference over, the two golfing en- 
thusiasts hurried out to the links It 
was a balmy spring day 
Taft plaved spiritedly through the 
first SIX holes Then, as he teed off 
on the seventh, he clapped a hand 
to his hip and remarked that it felt 
stiff The\ finished the round Taft 
went home complaining about his 
hip, and that he was short of breath 
and weak in the knees 
On April 29 Taft saw his Wash- 
ington phvsician The doaor was 
unable to account for the symptoms 
and suggested a senes of hospital 
tests For the next few weeks Taft 
shuttled baek and forth bctv\cen 
the (Capitol and the Walter Reed 
Hospital Tests rescaled a constant, 
low fever and moderate anamia, 
but X-rays failed to show wh«it was 
wrong with the hip It might be 
arthritis or a tumour 
By the end of the first week in 
May the Senator was limping and 
in con sidei able pain, but the pain 
didn’t seem to slow him down He 
continued to spend full time at his 
strenuous job as Senate majority 
leader and to show up regularly for 
conferences at the White House 
In the middle of May Taft went 
down to Hot Springs, Virginia, 
where his wife was resting He had 
already made up his mind that Mrs 
Taft was not to worry about him 
But she was hard to fool In their 
39 years together Bob and Martha 
Taft had achieved one of those de- 
voted marriages that seem to have 
gone out of style since the Vic- 


torian era. A stroke which had 
made her a wheel-chair invalid 
three years before had only brought 
them closer Taft wheeled her every- 
where himself and always lifted her 
in and out of their car 

Now, at the Hot Springs railway 
station on the homeward trip, he 
made one last attempt to carry on 
as usual He picked her up and ear- 
ned her into the tram and through 
the coach Then, white and perspir- 
ing, he half fell into a seat and con- 
fessed that he was haying “a little 
tioLible ' with his hip 

Some ten days later Taft flew to 
his home state of Ohio where he 
was scheduled to deliver a speech 
on the 26th An appointment was 
made for him to see his Cincinnati 
physician The moment he presented 
himself to his doctor at the hospital 
he was put to bed and told to stay 
there His son read his speech 

When doctors at the hospital 
looked Taft over there was a new 
development in the case A small 
dark-colourt d lump had risen on 
his forehead and two on his abdo- 
men close to the bad hip The 
lumps were removed and a dozen ex- 
pertsexamined them The diagnosis 
widespread cancer The prognosis 
not too hopeful 

Taft took It without the flicker 
of an eye, and asked for details. 

He waa told that it was an ex- 
tremely rare form of cancer, mys- 
terious in origin All the painful 
tests had failed to reveal the one 
thing his doctors wanted to know 



/954 MtKUtL LAyj UAY^ OF ROBERT TAFT 


— where it started He was advised 
to choose another hospital — one of 
the great canccr-trcatment centres 
where the diagnosis could be 
checked again, a hold-the-line 
course of treatment got under way 
and the search renewed for the 
source of the cancer 

Taft left the Ohio hospital a week 
later He appeared in the Senate on 
crutches Cortisone treatments had 
removed much of the pain, and he 
looked rested and cheerful When 
questioned, he said “It’s mv hip 
muscle ” He felt uncomfortable 
about the deception but had decided 
upon It lor two reasons First, he 
wanted to spare Martha Taft Sec- 
ond, he ft It that the success of the 
Republican Administration’s first 
)ear m office rested on his ability to 
get the Congressional decks cleared 
and read) for the President’s exten- 
sive new legislative programme 
He had counted on a year for the 
job He now knew he had much 
le time than that, but he believed 
he could do it 

Taft soon realized that he could 


ate 20 minutes before the bell. On 
his crutches he swung heavily down 
the aisle to his front-row seat. He 
was now very pale and had lost 
weight A bulletin from Taft’s office 
had aleited the firess gallery His 
hip ailment was serious, it said. 
Taft told reporters that for the re- 
mainder of the session he was turn- 
ing over the floor leadership to Sen- 
ator Knowland 

The next day he got a telegram 
from President Eisenhower “Take 
every step to restore your health. 
The countrv needs such as you ” 

fie made his will He spent seven 
hours at a committee hearing on 
labour and social-welfare legislation. 
Then he wxnt back to New York 
Hospital This time he registered 
under his right name 

Late in June he got himself out 
of bed and returned to W^ashington. 
It was swcltenngly hot, but the 
Senator bustled busily in and out 
of committee rooms Herbert 
Hoover dropped into a meeting in 
the Vice-President’s office and was 
astounded to sec Taft there After 


no longer put off another spell in the meeting Mr Hoover, who had 
hospital He selected New York been advised of Taft’s true condition, 
Hospital It was only an hour by scolded him for having left the hos- 
plane from Washington Playing pital Taft replied, “You know what 
hide-and-seek with the press, he is the matter with me I know what 
registered as Howard Roberts Cor- is the matter with me But I'm 
tisone treatments were continued, going to die with my boots on^'^ 
and the gruelling routine of X-rays, That week a group of New York 
tests and prodding examinations specialists came to Washington and 
began again made another exhausting series of 

On June lo Taft flew back to tests The news was bad. There was 


Washington. He arrived in the Sen- no ‘^ign, they told him that his 



THE READER^S DIGEST 


It 

case would respond to any of the 
new treatments 

On Jul\ 4 Taft flew back to New 
York On enterfng the hospital he 
paused long enough to tell reporters 
that he had advised Harold Stassen 
to submit to the next Congress a 
programme to end U S aid to other 
countries Thus he Llevtrlv drew a 
veil of political and journalistic cx 
citement over his now crucial phv 
sical conditu)!! 

On Ju Iv S an incision was made 
in his abdominal cavitv 1 lit organs 
and tissue were thoroughh exam 
ined There was no indication of 
where the cancer had staitcd The 
Senator was calm about the failure 
of the operation He had not al 
lowed himself to hope too much 

One morning soon afterwards 
Taft found he was unable to com 
plete the crosswoid pu 7 zle in one 
of the three papers he read dailv 
He was bewildered “I know^ those 
word;>'” he exclaimed “I just can’t 
seem to remember them’” 

To his doctors, the failure was 
significant Within a day or so the 
Senator l^egan to draw more .ind 
more mental blanks The cancer had 
reached his brain He lapsed into 
brief periods of coma 

Word was sent to his famiK that 
the end was near On July 28 a 
chartered plane carried Martha Taft 
and others of the family from 
Washington to New York Taft 
was only half conscious A nurse 
said, “Mrs. Taft is here to see you ” 

An amazing change came over 


the Senator He raised himself on 
an elbow and called out, “Crank up 
the bed* Ciet me an extra pillow* 
Here, help me sit up*” 

It was a might> effort When his 
wife w.is wheeled into the room he 
said, “Well, Martha*” He leaned 
forw.ird and put both arms round 
her He kissed her and laid his 
cheek against lurs He told her he 
was glad to see her looking so well 
The visit lasted 15 minutes Mar- 
tha Taft’s last glimpse of her hus- 
band showed him sitting up, wav- 
ing chccrfLilh and smiling 

A few minutes latei he closed his 
eyes and slid into a coma from 
which li. ne\er emerged He was 
unconscious all the next clav , he died 
on Julv 31, 195^, at 1 1 30 a m 
An autopsy revealed the hiding- 
place e)f the mvstcnenjs “parent” 
cancer It was in one of the branches 
e)f the an tube in the light lung It 
was about the size of the rubber tip 
of a lead pencil 

In April Taft’s condition had 
bc'cn just bad enough to mak.^ him 
feel short ot breath during a game 
ol golf Now, three months later, 
the man of w'hom it was said “He 
was born to be Piesidcnt,” was dead 
Piled on a chair m the light, airy 
hospital room where he died was a 
vtrv small heap of unfinished Sen- 
ate business He had wanted to get 
it all out of the wav before he went, 
and he almost made it One of the 
doctors told us‘ “He was the best 
loser I have ever seen He gave us 
all a lesson in how to die ” 




)f the charm of the 
little P hotel where 1 
staved last siimmei was 
due' to the fact that most of the 
bedroom windows fac^d on to a 
(jiiKL tourtvard, making lor a cer- 
tain co/iness among the ehcntelt 
One could look down and ascertain 
how man) uoissants the old aeade- 
nvcian eonsumed with his petit de- 
jeuner, or across and judge whether 
the English had been out late by 
ihe hour they started dressing One 
eoLild also hear much of the conver- 
satKin at the reeeption dcsk-’espcci- 
all) if It was between the coneicrge 
and the sort of Ameriean tourist 
who thinks that the best way to 
make himself iindei stood in French 
IS to speak Engli^^h slowly and at the 
top of his lungs 

1 overheard one such linguist in 
the throes of dispatching an air-mail 
letter He was the sort of globe -trot- 


ter who regarded anv custom not 
UK) per cent American as a personal 
atlront First the concierge went 
thioLigh the leisurely mechanics of 
prcHliieing a small scale and weigh- 
ing his letter with the stndiousness 
ol an akhemist Then she opened a 
soil of serapb(K)k from whose pages 
she e\ti acted the correct stamps, 
carefulK noting the amount in a 
two-column ledger beiorc sticking 
them on to the en\ elope All this 
seemed to the tourist an elaborate 
waste of time Hut when he caught 
sight of the box in which his letter 
was deposited, ht critd out in hog- 
siimmoning tones, “You don’t call 
that thing .. njuil-ho\^ It’s ridicu- 
lous’” 

I’he object of his contempt was 
a lillle cast iron affair modestly at- 
tache 1 to a side of the desk It in- 
deed looked more like a Victorian 
child’s mcmey-box than a receptacle 




"" THE EBdDEirS DlijEiitT 


for post Its only identification was 
the word *'Depeches*' in quaint let- 
ters tastily entwined with vine- 
leaves In halting but soothing Eng- 
lish the concierge agreed that )es, 
perhaps the box was small but the 
post office w.is close at h.md ind 
there were 1 1 collections a dav 
“Eleven^’’ continued our bigger- 
and-better citizen “We ha\c foiir^ 
But you should see our maiKioxes 
and he made the gesture of a fisher- 
man telling lies about a tarpon 
Madame, foi whom the sight of an 
American mailbox was not a m ijor 
ambition, shrugged politely and ex 
plained that with frexjuent collec- 
tions the postman had le'ss of <i load, 
the risk of losing any letter wms 
minimized and mail could be dis- 
patched with gre.iter frequenes 
Having no immediate answer, my 
compatriot uttered anoth( i “It’s 
ridiculous and walked off 

This phrase started to ring in m\ 
head, perh.ips because I hear it ut- 
tered so frequcntlv by certain of m\ 
fellow eountrvincn abroad Unfor 
tunately. it is usually said in loud 
tones, those who sa\ it going on the 
theory that the Freneh do not un- 
derstand, or if they do it doesn’t 
in the least matter 
This seems strangel\ inc(;n si stent 
with our American trait of wanting 
desperately tc be liked For cer- 
tainly the average American sets 
greatci store by demonstrations of 
affection than any other living crea- 
ture with the possible exception of 
the cocker spaniel And yet this 


staunch pillar of his own commun- 
ity, at home so anxious to win 
friends and influence people, all too 
frequently becomes an ambassador 
of ill will when he travels. 

I have a feeling that we Ameri- 
cans behave worse in France than 
111, sav, England or Italy The warm 
genialitv of the Italians disarms 
even the most intolerant of our citi- 
zens And thcie is something about 
the British which tends to subdue 
the bad child inallof us TheFieneh, 
on the other hand, h.ive a ejuality 
peCLiliarlv riling to the excessivelv 
American, and ‘hat is an uttei stlf- 
sufficiency best summed up in the 
expression “.s'e /7 fchc-iwie,'' or 
“don't gi\e a damn-ism ’’ It is the 
(lallie livt-and-let-li\c as opposed to 
our live and-let-li\e-as-!ong as \ou- 
do-it-our-wav .ittitude If the way 
isn’t ours, even if it w'orks entiiel) 
to the satisfaction (;f the J'ren^h, for 
us It’s cither as hiLirioiis as .i mous- 
tache cu[) or an insult to the superi- 
ority of American gadgetry — “It’s 
ridk iiloiis ^ 

One hears the querulous phrase 
icitcrated over countless things that 
are “cIifTcrcnt ” The elaborately ar 
tistic money The unelalioratc and 
anything Init artistic plumbing 
I’hat interesting morning brew 
which lo the French is coffee. The 
casual system of forwarding a trunk 
when, in lieu of a baggage tag, a 
limp little stamp is slapped some- 
where on the top (Somehow the 
trunk turns up at its proper destina- 
tion ) The peculiar appearance of 



1954 ITS RIDICOLOUSI rp ') 

French handwritten numerals, ritual, a pleasurable respite that is 
which to us more resemble notes of vital to the French Thanks to this 
ancient music than figures (I over- leisurely habit there are hardly any 
heard one disgruntled tourist tell- stomach specialists in France, and 
ing a waiter, ''Voitre figure e<it niters are as rare as bubble gum. 
afircH^e,'' which, meaning “Your Absurd as it mav seem to us Ameri- 
faie is awful “ didn’t further intei- cans, a French buMnessman would 
national rel.itions ) [nit ofT an important deal rather 

It's all ridiculous • One frequently than curtail his two-hour lunch. It 
hears the comment in those small seems even moie absurd to the 
restaurants wh( re, in order to save h' tench that the U S businessman 
laundrv costs, paper tablecloths are would remain tied to his desk at 
used The napkins, ht^wever, are noon, die eating letters while he 
those magnificent kmg-si/e ones of downs milk from a wax container 
hcavv linen, a bit rough, and smell- and a sanrlwich from a paper bag 

mg dehciouslv of hav fields and sour We (‘ften s.ive time only to kill it 
br^ad But, s.ivs our practical Yank, later The French have no such ex- 
if they're cconomi7ing, whv not pression as ' killing time " In their 
p.iper na[)Mns? The whv-not is ob more philosophical vocabulary the 
vioiis to the naLivc habitue of the term is “passing time,’’ which means 
small restaurant With happv in- savoui ing .ill moments of it each to 
souciance he opens out the great his individu.il enjoyment 
square, tics two corners about his One sure-fire spark for the “It’s 
neck and spreads the rest out over ridiculous explosion lies in un- 
paunch and lap The ostensible re.i- familiar traffic regulations Risking 
son for the napkin is to protect his the hazards ot driving a car in Pans, 
cknhts from living ciilinary items, an American is likelv to park in a 
but the more innate one is the an- street where there is no visible in- 
ticipatoiy clTcct of the gesture, die terdiction against doing so On re- 
feel, the smell which serves as a turning, he finds stuck under his 
spiritual aperitif to th.it most cssen- windscreen wiper a communication 
ti.il ot Ckillic blessings — hori appctit from the police informing him that 

For a Frenchman to exchange his he has violated the rules of station- 
beautiful big hnen napkin for a ing himself He becomes righteously 
flimsy bit of tea-shoppe fnpperv is indign.int Tracking down the 
as unthinkable as swapping his red agent dc police who made out the 
wine for a milk shake ticket, he is told that obviously, as 

This alimentary subject brings to evervbodv knows, on the odd days 
mind one of the most constant of the month one parks on the odd- 
grounds for American incompie- number side ot the street; on even 
hension — the two-hour s-for lunch davs, on the even-numbci ones. To 



20 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


our hero this regulation is preposter- 
ously cockeyed, it robs his speech of 
everything but expletives 

This kind of sclf-cxpression is ill 
advised, for the Pans policeman is 
no more appreciative of civilian crit- 
icism than IS the New Yoik cop He 
can, however, become the most 
lenient of constables when ap 
proached with the pr(»per icchnique, 
which IS to look helpless, speak with 
meek politeness and admit to being 
an Ignorant foreiener Such appeal 
to the (hillic sense of reason will 
usually make the toughest (^Ihcei 
dismiss his belligertnce with a twirl 
of his white baton and give, instead 
of a ticket, a discourse on the beauti- 
ful logic of Parisian tralTic laws He 
will explain that parking on odd or 
even sides ot the street according to 
the day of the month .illows shop- 
keepers to take turns in shanng the 
handicap of parked cars blocking 
their doorwav s 

What if the situation were re- 
versed and wc in America w^eie in 
vaded yearlv bv French tourists who 


treated us with similar insensitivity 
and our native customs with similar 
cenitcmpt^ How long before there’d 
be vieJent protests in the press and 
scrawls on our walls shouting our 
versicm of “i' s (,0 ijovii-” signs' 

A Frenchman I know, living now 
in the United States, peiiodically 
secs French associates who tome 
ovei on busm(‘ss fri[)s He meets 
then incoming planes with wMrni 
greetings and words which go some- 
thing like this “l.isten, won vieux 
You’ll find that some things are a 
lot better here than chez rwn<, some 
things a lot wx)rst, and soint things 
--)iist dilhrent But it won't lie 
Frame, and while vou'te here it 
won t tlo am good to compknn 
Accept the situation and vou’ll have 
a good time If voti can’t, \ou can 
ilwav s reme mbt r the ti i[) is tempoi- 
ctiv and vcKj'll soon lx bask home 
It IS mv belief lh.it a short tian 
Script ot these sentiments should, 
along With the \aecination eertifi- 
c.ite, be com[)Lilsordv cndcAed with 
e\erv Amern m passpoit 




Return Call 

ullimionI shrilled in the i.iiddlt ot the night, am' I groggiiy 
picked up the r^^ceiver It was i tiiink call Mv ht.irt h iinmciing, I 
heard, “Is that you, Son^“ 

“Mum * What’s wrong^’’ 

“Nothing’s wrong” I could hear Mother chiKkle “It’s youi 
birthday ” 

“Good heavens’ You didr’i drag me out ot bed at ^ a m just to 
say Happy Birthc'ay, did you^” 

“Well, you made me gel out of bed at ^ a m ^o years ago tonight 
--and I felt it was high time I paid you bark ’’ 

-C tl by Pliihjj 1 incoln 



Something 

the ^ex expel ti ovei looked 

Cove 

IS NOT A 
STATISTIC 

A’y Mauiue / olotow 


III miicli-pul)lici/c(l incjuincs 
into the sex lile ot Amcnc.iiis, 
m*ilc and female, err griev- 
ously bv omitting the onlv elctail 
of real importance The\ deal with 
the purely animal rather than the 
deeply human aspects of the subjcet 
The famous Kinsey reports, with 
thcir graphs and statistics, mav be- 
stow an aura of “scientific” approval 
upon the great modern delusion 
that sex is a competitive indoor 
sp(iit, which, like bridge or table 
tennis, can be mastered by studving 
technique and practising as often as 
possible with as many partners as 
can be induced to play 
The investigators failed to ask 
the question crucial to human be- 
ings What was the emotional qual- 
ity of the moments of love-making^ 
They seem to regard love as an ath- 
letic contest in which the number 


of lovers and the frequency of sex 
adventure — the scoring record, so to 
speak — are more important than the 
quality of the experience The re- 
sulting reports arc therefore con- 
I using to men and women already 
disiurbed about sex, increasing their 
anxiety and reducing thtir con- 
lidence in themselves as human 
beings 

Victims of the sex delusion learn 
that the act thc\ have been led to 
believe is exhilaiating and ecstatic 
can be mechanical and lifeless, often 
bunging bitterness anrl self-doubt 
instead of the mood of scrcnit\ and 
(.motional lalhlment 

This expected m )od can never 
occur without lose There can be 
no testasv unless the sex act ex- 
pi esses lose for the other peison 
Love IS an intense awareness of the 
loved one, a feeling of respect for 
him or her as a human being and 
an instinctive recognition that the 
needs of the* other peison are as im- 
portant to vou IS \our own needs. 

Hut all too manv people make 
love to anonvmous blobs in the 
darkness Thev go through the mo- 
tions of sex without knowing any 
true sexual fulfilment Where there 
ishostilit\ and resentment, boredom 
and mutual disparagement in a rela- 
tionship, nothing vital is going to 
happen sexually, no matter how 
frcc]ueritl\ you “necked” during 
adolescence and even if you have 
never acquired any horrible “re- 
ligions inhibitions ” 



27 



THE READEWS DIGEST 


The essential attitude of mutual 
respect cannot be forced. Nor can 
it be obtained by memorizing books 
on sex technique The offices of 
psychoanalysts arc crowded with 
men and women who think all they 
need is to be fixed up in the sex 
department They think they are 
“frigid” or “impotent” — or some- 
thing They discover that there is a 
more fundamental sickness in their 
souls, and that they will not be cap- 
able of warmth and intimacy with 
another person until that sickness is 
healed 

One famous ps\choanalyst told 
me of a male patient who com- 
plained “Tve had SIX love affairs 
since 1940, but I can't seem to en- 
joy any of it Is there something the 
matter with me^ I feel I’m not get- 
ting out of sex what I’m supposed 
to.” Another male patient com- 
plained “I can’t get close to people, 
even my wife and children I feel 
almost obliged to have relations 
with my wife, rather than that I 
actually want to ” 


Dr. Clara Thompson, a dis- 
tinguished psychiatrist, told me 
that the sexual experiences of pro- 
miscuous people are always unsatis- 
factory For about 15 years I have 
been the confidant of H»'oadwa) 
and Holhwood actors and actresses 
who have opportunities to live a 
promiscuous sexual life And some 
of them live it to the hilt — eight, 
ten, 12 “affairs” a \ear But when 
they trust you and let down their 
hair, thev will confess how frus- 
trating and Linsatisfving it all is 
Granted, to be so guilt-ridden and 
repressed that one is afraid of sexual 
urges IS a sign of personal maladjust- 
ment But It is equally true that 
sexual promiscuity 01 experimenta- 
tion, without tenderness and affec- 
tion, is no less destiuctive Persons 
incapable of real love, who look 
upon It as a plusical appetite or a 
sport, usually lead lues as frustrated 
.md lonely as the once-ridiculed 
Victorian spinsters Without love 
and mutual respect, the act of sex 
IS barren and self-defeating 


So T hat's Hotu It Started f 

igo4 a French SLicntisi named Bencdictus dulodgcd a bottle from 
Its shelf in his laboratory, and it fell to the fioor with a crash h 
broken, but co the stientist’s astonishment it retained its shape None of 
the particles was scattered Bencdictus remembejed he had been using col- 
lod on in solution in this bottle By some charuc the solvent had evapor 
ated, leaving a skin of cellulose nitrate on the walls of the bottle A few 
days later he read in his paper of a motor accident in which a woman had 
been seriously cut by flying glass The two events connected themselves 
m Benedictus’s mind, and laminated safety glass was the outcome 




I \ December 1950 the half-de- 
stioyecl c.it\ of Seoul was about 
to be captured bv the Communists 
for a second time Only j few hours 
remained to salvage precious na- 
tional treasures, and a government 
ship stood by for one last-minute 
cargo 

^Vhat could be evacuated that 
would be of most value to the 
nation ^ Machinery ^ Engraved plates 
for printing money The govern- 
ment chose to rescue the Seoul 
Symphony Orchestra For without 
music there could be no Korea 
Korean music is unique and won- 
derful It IS the only Asian music 
which compares m richness and 
emotional complexity with the best 
of Europe Founded upon a three 

James Michenfr has recently returned troni 
Korea and Japan where he gathered the 
material for this article 


Our unl{nown friends, the Koreans, 
despite a long series of devastations, 
have an extraoi dinary cultural heri- 
tage of which the world kjiows far 
too little 

or six-beat system, its best songs 
sound like spirited waltzes 
If a dozen Koreans gather it 
won’t be long before singing starts. 
Four Koreans and a bottle of wine 
will provide music for an entire 
night Recently I overheard such an 
impromptu songfest, in the course 
of half an hour these village singers 
tried half a dozen folk songs, part 
of a Korean opera, “My Old Ken- 
tucky Home” and the “Habanera” 
from Carmen Schoolgiil groups 
love the wild old folk songs Boys’ 
choirs sing Western music and street 
singers chant, “How Much Is That 
Doggie in the Window Only 


THE EEADBIR'S DIGEST 


strikingly similar Wales provides as 
much music as Korea, so that the 
rescue o£ the Seoul Symphony Or- 
chestra made sense. Here was a real 
national treasure 
But the Koreans’ love of music 
doesn’t mean they are a soft people. 
Koreans are — and have to be — 
tough. Theirs is the most-destroyed 
nation on earth You have to go 
back to the Middle Ages to find an- 
other nation so completely wiped 
out. Yet today's destruction is 
merely one more in the long senes 
of devastations First came the an- 
cient Chinese marauders They were 
followed by ravaging Mongols of 
Genghis Khan In 1592 the Japanese 
destroyed almost every city in Korea , 
in 1636 the Chinese Manchus ic- 
peated the job In 1910 the Japanese 
took over complctelv When libera- 
tion finally came in 1945 the Rus- 
sians occupied North Korea Then, 
in 1950, war again shattered the land 
It IS doubtful if any other nation 
on earth, except possibly Poland, 
has maintained its integritv under 
such conditions It is an historical 
miracle that Korea exists today 
Four explanations arc suggested 
First, Korea serves as a bridge 
between the mainland of Asia and 
Japan Since ancient days cultured 
Chinese and savage tribes from Si- 
beria and Manchuria have gathered 
at the northein end, while at the 
southern have stood the capable 
Japanese. The history of Korea must 
be viewed as the passage of these 
peoples back and forth across the 


Hay 

peninsular bridge. These vast move- 
ments have brought not only the 
destruction of war but also the 
benefits of peace. To a strong, capa- 
ble Korean people their bridge has 
brought influences from Japan and 
Siberia 

Second, the country is tremen- 
dously mountainous It is claimed 
that if Its peaks w^ere flattened out 
Korea would cover the entire earth 
Such chopped-up terrain encour- 
ages tight little groups to hide away 
in remote valleys and continue their 
immemorial customs regardless of 
who occupies the cities A Korean 
village today, with us grass-roofed 
houses built round tiny central 
courtyards, looks very much as it 
did a thousand years ago Such 
isolated living engenders rugged in- 
dividualism 

Third, Koreans as a national 
group are unbelievably resilient, 
dogged and well suited to absorb 
the shocks of history An American 
colonel who watched them palientl) 
rebuilding a village which would 
have to be destroyed m the next big 
push said, “The\ work slowly, but 
nobody can stop them ” I remem- 
ber asking an admiral in command 
of forces trying to destroy a Korean 
railway bridge what he would do 
when he retired He replied, “I’m 
going to cash in my insurance, 
pawn my wife’s jewels and invest 
every cent I have in any railway in 
the world that will hire Koreans 
for maintenance men ” 

Fourth, as a people and as a na- 



WB MUST KESFBCT KOREAN CULTURE 


J954 

tion, Koreans possess a stunnmg in- 
tegrity Defeated and mutilated by 
wars, they still have kept them- 
selves proudly intact A Korean 
sociologist says, “I think it’s because 
of our women Thev treasure this 
sen^e of personal puntv Japanese 
occupied us for 40 vears, but our 
women ignored them One enemy 
after another has sw’ep#t our land, 
but none were able to seduce our 
women American troops, coming 
as allies, have had a little better luck, 
but we must remember that Genghis 
Khan’s troops didn’t have mail- 
order catalogues to help them do 
their wooing ” 

What ma)oi ideas from Asia 
moved over the Korean bridge to 
enrich the worleP Practically an 
entire civilization w»is exported to 
)apan Almost every facet of Japa- 
nese culture was first polished in 
Korea 

Three religions came down from 
the bridge Confucianism from 
China, Buddhism from India and 
Shamanism, or spirit woiship, from 
Siberia Each took hold in Japan, 
where the latter two pros[)ercd. 
Buddhism under its own name and 
Shamanism as the much-improved 
Shinto 

In architecture the pagoda and 
temples with upswept roof-poles 
were passed on Some of the nnest 
sculpture in Asia was done bv Ko- 
rean artists In art the secrets of 
woodblock printing and Chinese 
pottery were transmitted across the 
bridge As early as 900, Korean 


potters were making exquisite bowls 
and dishes with lustrous glazed fin- 
ishes These ancient works of art 
are now prized in museums round 
the world In the gieat Japanese 
invasion of 1592 the principal loot 
taken away by the conquerors was 
a colony of potters who built the 
Japanese ceramics industry which 
later sent its superb products across 
the earth 

Unfortunately the Japanese re- 
fused to borrow Korea's great in- 
vention of the floor-heated house. 
The germ of this idea probably orig- 
inated m Manchuria, but the Ko- 
reans perfected the simple trick of 
piping hot air and smoke through 
floor ducts, over which were placed 
large slabs of laminated paper lac- 
quered with bean oil, so that the 
Korean floor is beautifully polished 
and permanently warm As long 
ago as the time of (Christ, Koreans 
cn)o\ed radiant heating 

Western gardens have been en- 
riched by the glorious flowers which 
came to them through Korea Some, 
like the forsythia, azalea and plum, 
came from China, but the Japanese 
cherr) originated in Korea, where 
the world’s finest groves of this 
spectacular tree still stand 

There were other lovely things 
that developed in Korea, some- 
times with an initial hint from 
China or Siberia, but always with 
a strong Korean colour. One is the 
Korean dance, wild, passionate and 
sweet At times it tells an histone 
story in the manner of a ballet 



36 


THE READER'S DtGESf 


"May 


Often It expresses a sly commen- 
tary on human pompousness or the 
ridiculous upsets of love The dances 
I like best are crazy little ones that 
simply tell of a man or woman hav- 
ing a rousing good time 

Every Korean can dance, not 
mystically as in India nor with iron 
skill as in Japan Korean dancers are 
just happv people in billowy cos- 
tumes, cavorting with the joy of 
life. 

Another Korean in\ention is the 
kisang house, where professional 
entertainers sing and dance foi 
well-paying customers In Japan this 
became the highly formalized geisha 
house 

In science, Korea has made sev- 
eral distinguished advances one of 
the first astronomical observatories, 
the first controlled s)stem of meas 
uring rainfall, cast-metal type for 
printing books at least 50 vears 
before Gutenberg, and one of the 
first comprehensive encyclopa*dias 

Perhaps the greatest contribution 
was in the field of naval science In 
1592 Admiral Yi Soon-Sin got the 
job of halting the Japanese invasion 
But his wooden ships were knocked 
out by a secret weapon imported by 
Japan from England cannon When 
the Japanese had landed, Yi quietly 
assembled his remaining ships and 
encased them in metal so that they 
looked like turtles Then Yi’s iron- 
clads sped out and destroyed the 
Japanese fleet, putting an end to the 
invasion. 

The Chinese have always called 


the Koreans “^the gentlemen and 
scholars of the East.” Korea's major 
intellectual accomplishment was its 
alphabet. For the first 1,500 years 
of the nation’s history, all writing 
was done in Chinese characters. 
This kept Koreans largely illiterate, 
for spoken Korean is as different 
from Chinese as Finnish is from 
English 

Then in 1445 a brilliant Korean 
king handed his people a practical 
alphabet which anyone can learn 
in an afternoon Illiteracy in Korea 
has practically disappeared 

Throughout history there was a 
rich interchange of ideas between 
East and West; one Korean cave 
contains extraordinary carvings 
whose graceful drapery copied 
Greek statues which we^e well 
known as early as a d 300 

The movement of Western ideas 
through Korea has continued into 
modern times Koreans sa>, “Ihe 
Germans brought us breweries and 
public architecture The English 
taught us how to collect customs 
and work out a financial system. 
The French brought civil law and 
museums, while the American*^ gave 
us hospitals and schools ” 

Korea is unique among the major 
nations of the world in that it has 
no generally accepted national re- 
ligion At one time Buddhism pre- 
dominated but never really captured 
the country. Later, Korean men 
were Confucianists while many of 
the women clung to Shamanism 
and Its warm world of spirits. To- 



37 


fVE MUST RESPECT k6rEAN CULTURE 


>954 

day the leading religion is Christian- 
ity, hut the number of its actual 
followers is not great 
The permanent religion of Korea 
IS love of the land Against the 
1 ](kk 1 tides of disaster the people 
cling to their land This means tha.t 
tiu people ire stubborn, hard to 
get on with at first, sometimes c\en 
smug IP their assuiance that the\ 
kno\\ what’s l-esl tor Korea A 
scholar told me, “Until we. see some 
other naOon that has sur\i\ed the 
vva\ W'e ha\f , we must lx suspicious 
of geioel ad\iee from the outside “ 
This attituele has presented Korea 
tiom de\ eloping a lulK elemexratie 
go\ eminent I’he tough old wa\s 
are good enough 

In spite e)t its weinderful [leople, 
Korea is a nation scem^ destined 
foi tragecK CieejgraphiealK it must 
alw i\s be a budge nation, anel it is 
the late of sueli nations to be m- 
saded pe i UKliealh TeHlav, in addi 
tUM te) the histone pressnu horn 


China, Siberia and Japan, the forces 
of Russia and the Western World 
have met on the Kore.in bridge. 

Th.it Korea will sta\ invaded per- 
m.mentK because of this is ua** 
likeK In the cold December of 
le^S^ 1 ‘^aw vn id pieiof of Korea’s 
determination \t night there was, 
IK' eleetiicitv for most hoaics in 
Seoul, no i tinning uMter, no heat- 
ing d here wms iiisulHeient food, 
and of everv li\e buildings three 
were Iximbed out Seoul wms a de- 
stro\ed and miseiable eit\, liiit its 
aitists d( elded to hold an exhibition. 

In a shabb\ h.ill whose rooms 
were ec'ld and drea?\ was hung a 
ccilkction of [)ietures th.it wcxild 
have gi.iceel .in\ world c.ipital 
Hen was no dcdefiil emphasis on 
w II Not one of the .irtists who 
painted these pie tines had known 
seiuritv, w.irmth oi sutbeient food 
^et h(ie was the vigour ot Korean 
d.meing the )o\ of Koie.m song 
d hat is the spirit ol Koie.i 


ho) the Kcco}d 


A MMKiivM scam in vv is being inv c sog tied under the I S Ini- 
migr.ilion Ad “Do veai,” asked the iiuei KJg.itor , “bivt an\ poino- 
gr.iphu liltiaiiiie'’ 

“Pni nogra[)hic hleriture*’’ the sailoi burst (nil nielignantl) “1 
deal’ll \en have i pornogr.iph ’’ Dcm. ei iV m i ht i),i>innun 

Ai \ sMM'i I I’Mcn m I ondon, the idoi John l.odii was se ited 
next If) ail attractive b'ciieh woman wh( lives in It ily l.odtr, who 
knows the counliy well, asked in what part, and she lepliecl, “In ze 
Norz 

“What beautiliil lakes yon have’,” he said 

“Hf)W ean you sec zem^” she isked “"'^ey aie uueler /e table ’’ 

1 t on \i n I sons 



By Svetlana Gniizenl^o 


\ III ^^u 1 were hav- 
ing dinner with friends 
who live ncai us in (Can- 
ada Sornchudv mentioned a storv 
then on the tront pages of the news- 
papervS two United States Sen<itors 
had travelled to Canada to diseiiss 
Soviet espionage with Igor Coli- 
zenko, former Red Arms Intelli- 
gence clerk at the Russian hmbass\ 
in Ottawa 

Our friends talked about (Jou- 
zenko and how' he had fled from his 
post in 1 ^ 4 ^, turning over to the 
Canadian Government almost loo 
official Soviet reports, exposing the 
Red spv network 

“I wonder it any of us will ever 
meet this fellow Gijuzenko,” one of 
the men said “The newspapers sav 
that he and his wife and ehildrtn 
are living somewheu in Canada Oi 
course, nobodv savs where he lives 
because the Russians would love to 
get their hjnd<^ on him ” 

I could not help stealing a glance 
at my husband He was busy with 
his food and he said nothing He 
seemed rather bored bv the conver- 
sation I wondertd what the people 
who were sitting witli him would 


When Igor Ck)iizenkc) walked 
out ot the Russian Embassy in 
Ottawa in StptcniU i i()4S he look 
with him stnsalional evidcnct that 
iht Soviet Unu»n was systematically 
hetrj\ing its allies Since then, tor 
the list eight yeais, Mr (lou/enko 
has been a tugilive from the Soviet 
secret police This article by his witc 
tells how they live, hut not where 

think if thev knew he was Igor 
(Jou/xnko 

“It the Russians learned of Gou- 
zenko s whereabouts,” one of the 
men said, “that would be the end 
of him He and his wife must have 
a very lonclv life “ 

1 had to restrain mvself from 
laughing aloud It is true that dur- 
ing these eight years we have con- 
cealed our idcntit\ The onlv peo- 
ple who know where the Gou/enko 
tamilv lives arc a few Canadian 
Cjovernmcnt officials and my hus- 
band’s bodyguard, a Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police constable who poses 
as our handy man and chauffeur 
Only a few people have met us as 
Mr and Mrs Igor Gouzenko These 
are our lawyer, the editors for 



UFE IN HIDINC 


wtom my husband writes and some 
American and Canadian journalists 
who have interviewed us. 

When we see such visitors under 
our real name, we meet them at the 
home of a friend who does not 
know where we live We park our 
car a long distance from the friend’s 
house and travel the rest of the way 
by taxi. Our own children do not 
know their real name 
But we are not frightened and 
lonely Far from it 
Under our assumed name, we 
have a busy life We have made 
many new friends and we go to 
parties and enjoy sports I am deeply 
involved in social activities of all 
kinds My husband and I feel that 
this normal life makes us safer from 
Soviet vengeance If we lived as 
recluses we might cause talk 
But while we enjoy life, we are 
always careful You must pardon 
me if I do not describe exactly what 
spons I like One of the women 
who know me might read this 
article and recognize me 
Now and then a little thing hap- 
pens and we wonder A few weeks 
ago a man stopped in front of our 
house to change a flat tyre My hus- 
band became alert From our living- 
room window, he took pictures of 
the car and its licence-plate 
“It’s only a man changing a tyre,” 
I said to him. 

‘T know,” Igor said. “But why 
did he happen to stop in front of 
our house?” 

The man with the flat tyre was 


a? 

checked by the Mounted Pohcc. He 
had a good reason for being in our 
street he lived in it 

Igor and I have too much of a 
foreign accent to pose as native-born 
Canadians, but our friends and our 
two children — a boy, ten, and a girl 
who is eight — have no idea that we 
were born in the Soviet Union. 
They think v^e came to Canada 
from another country in Europe. 

1 have never been in this Euro- 
pean countiy where I am supposed 
to have been born. But I can tell 
you all about it My past history 
was skilfully prepared for me h 
Canadian Intelligence experts an< 

I know It by heart I know every 
detail about “the town where I 
grew up,” the names of the shop- 
keepers and the schoolteachers, the 
house I lived in and its furnishings 
and the kind of trees and flowers in 
its garden It would be very difficult 
to trip me up 

We have changed our assumed 
name twice We cannot change it 
again The children arc too old now. 
It would be difficult to explain a 
new name to them 

And three times in the past six 
years we have moved to a new 
neighbourhood Igor feels it is wise 
not to stay too long in one place. 

I am not worried now, because I 
think we survived our worst danger 
long ago I feel that if the Soviet 
agents did not catch up with us 
during those first nerve-wracking 
months in the autumn of 1945, they 
will never get us. 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


30 

When Igor walked out of the em- 
bassy with the secret papers hidden 
under his shirt, we lived under tense 
secrecy. The Soviet olTicials knew 
that Igor had disappeared with vital 
documents But thev did not vet 
know whether he had turned him- 
self over to the Canadians or the 
Americans Thev were searching for 
him desperatelv, hoping to find him 
before he talked 

The first night after Igor van- 
ished, four men from the Soviet 
Embassy broke down the door ot 
our apartment in Somerset Street, 
Ottawa, and searched our rooms 
Igor and I and our little bov were 
hiding in the home of a neighliour 
across the hall In the morning, the 
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 
who had witnessed the seaoh bv 
the NKVD, W'crt listening to ni) 
husband’s siorv ana examining the 
Soviet papers These [tapers showed 
that samples ot uranium h id been 
sent to Moscow from Ameiican 
atomic laboratories and that Dr 
Alan Nunn Mav, one of the leading 
scientists wh(» worked on the bomb, 
had given detailed descriptions of 
the experiment to the Russians 
Later Dr Ma\ eonte>sed and was 
imprisoned 7 ’he findings in his 
case led to the eonvietions of Klaus 
Fuchs and the Rosenbergs 

Convinced that mv husband was 
telling the truth, the Canadians 
took all three ot us to a hideout in 
Ac country Despite the precautions 
I have mentioned, we live in won- 

in TtOV- 


May 

ernment never restricts our move- 
ments nor the social life we enjoy 
under our assumed name We 
travel all over Canada We have 
never visited the United States, not 
because it is forbidden but simply 
because Igor feels it might be ask- 
ing tor trouble 

Igor has spent the last four years 
writing a long novel about life in 
the Soviet Union, The FaV of the 
Titan, wBich will be published soon 
in the United States, Canada and 
Great Britain under Igor’s true 
name It our fi lends knew that he 
was a writer, thev might connect 
him with the book bv (muzenko 
They do know th.it he works at 
home, but thev think that he is an 
industri.il designer 

Demoeraev has been good to us 
'rwentielh Centurv-Fox paid Igor 
575,000 tor the film rights to his 
storv. The Iron Curtain, and Cos- 
mopolitan gave $50,000 for the 
magazine rights We also have an 
annuitv that gives us $100 a month 
tor the rest of our lives It was ( stab- 
lished for us by a private citizen in 
C'anada P'rank Ahearri, who want- 
ed to reward mv husband tor the 
service igor did for the country 
Our rather modest house in Can- 
ad.i would be regarded as a royal 
palace in Russia 

When I think of Russia, I think 
of an old man I talked with on the 
(locks at Vladivostok As we were 
waiting to go aboard the ship, we 
were g.iy and happy. The old man 
wns wafchintr us. 



OVR urn IN HIDING 


“I have seen many Russians like 
you go and come from America,” 
hr said to me “You are laughing 
now Hut when vou come back, you 
will be weeping ” 

Now 1 know what he meant 
So what docs it matter if we get 
a little ncrsoiis now and then when 
a strangci loii^crs near our housed 
Perhaps it is rather sad that we can- 


3 ^ 

not tell our son and our daughter 
then real name It is sometimes an- 
no\ing to go through the cloak-and- 
dagger procccluie of changing car 
liLcnce plates frequently and moving 
often to a new house where we can- 
not entertain the few friends who 
know our true idcntitv But all 
this IS verv much better than going 
back to Russia 


The Lady Vuntshe^ 

IL IIlnkv Cowlii, a folksong (olleclor, started to drive a small 
pick-up truck and trailer ^ laded with recording tcjuipmcnt from San 
I raiuisLO to New York She’d had no cvptnciHc in driving a trailer and 
got into diiliculty during hci lirst night out While she was trying to back 
up in the paiking area ol a roadside cate a huge tractoi trailer pulled into 
the yard The driver hopped down and came over “Having trouble he 
asked 


Mrs Cowell explained her predicament, and the driver spent about 
ten minutes showing her a few trick', of the trailer trade Then he asked 
how far she was going and what route she was taking and wished her 


luck 


At St Louis, Mrs Cxiwell left the mam highway and drove south to a 
sm '11 tow'n where she visited Iriends A week later she drove north again 
Only a tew miles after she’d picked up the main highway, an enormoUwS 
truck overtook her and the driver signalled her to stop 
“Lady t” he demanded “Where the devil you bceiK You disappeared 
“1 don’t know what you’re talking about,’’ saitl Mrs Cowell 
“We got word to keep an t'ye on you,’’ saul the driver “Every day 
we’d get reports on you from maybe four or me of the other truck drivers 
that seen you You was doing fine --taking it nice and easy and making 
good time — and then all of a sudden yow disapptat^ We been checking 
with the cops about accidents, but vve couldn’t even get a clue*’’ 

Mrs Cowell expluned that she’rl turned off the mam highway to visit 
friends “All right, lady,’’ the clpver said “Just so you’re okay I’ll pass 
the word along — some of the boys arc real w'orned Good luck t’’ 

Mrs. Cowell drove on to New York — careful, she says, to stick to the 

main loads — e ont'-.DuttJ by Ed Zem 



A handful of men with a handful of money are creating 
some bright spots tn the old world’s future 


They Develop Today’s Youtli 
for Tomorrow’s World 


BELONG to a unique com- 
' mittee of Americans and 
Canadians which meets 
once a month at a luncheon club in 
New York City This committee 
directs an undertaking which yields 
no monetary returns Yet I have 
heard it rated by heads of govern- 
ment, diplomats and men of affairs 
in many lands as one of the most 
productive international enterprises 
The men who direct this enter- 
prise share the con\iction that the 
future of the free world depends on 
what happens to the free world’s 
youth. In 29 countries they arc back- 
ing that conviction with practical 
support and thereby adding strength 
to one of the most effective and 
dynamic of the world’s non-Com- 
munist youth organizations 
The International Committee of 
the Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tions has a World Service budget of 
only ^525, 000 This money is used 
solely to prime the pump of local 
IcadershiD and self-helo. AoDroona- 



By Stanley High 

tions are not onlv matched in the 
countries where the) are received, 
they are multiplied The YMCA 
programme has no political, eco- 
nomic or sectarian strings attached 
I have lately seen something of 
what that programme is producing 
Cairo, Egypt Until the Egyptian 
YMCA, helped by an appropriation 
from the International Committee, 
started the Pont Limoun Club 
some 15 years ago, Cairo had no 
centre for work among the thou- 
sands of waifs who roam e city’s 
streets and live precariously by beg- 
ging and stealing The Pont Limoun 
Club is unimpressive an old build- 
ing with limited equipment, a 
walled-in vacant lot Its few hun- 
dred boys — ^to whom this place is 
school, playground, clubhouse and, 
often, home — seem too few to make 
a serious dent on the problem. 

But Pont Limoun has worked 
like a leaven in Cairo. Today, still 
run by the YMCA, its work is 
wholly financed by Egyptians, most 



THmr DSVELoP todays youth for tomorrow's world SS 


of them Moslems. Young Egyptians 
preparing for social work in Egypt’s 
towns and villages are assigned to 
Pont Limoun for training by the 
government’s Mmistrv for Social 
Affairs Public-spirited citizens of 
Cairo have started more than a score 
of similar clubs, the leaders were al- 
most all recruited from voung Mos- 
lems trained at Pont Limoun in the 
character-building programme of 
the YMCA 

Ko^f^inia, Greece This slum sub- 
urb of Athens was a Communist 
stronghold after World War II 
“You can’t change those people,” 
said a Greek shipowner when the 
"^'MCA ask(d his help to start bo\s 
work in Kokkinia 

But, supported jointly by the 
Greek Association and the Interna- 
tional Committee, the initial im- 
provised quarters were soon crowd- 
ed with young men and bo\s For 
the first time in their lives, these 
vou.igstcrs were greeted by fnendlv 
people working to interest and help 
them with organized sports, night 
classes, discussion groups, amateur 
plavs, communitv projects 

Today the Kokkinia YMCA has 
a new building and sports field, 
more than half the cost of the build- 
ing was contributed from the 
Queen’s Fund by Queen Frcderika 
The Greek Government now fin- 
ances summer camps for the under- 
privileged boys of Kokkinia and 
other communities and calls on the 
YMCA to help them train leaders 

Last year, when the Lawyers’ As 


sociation of Athens was asked to 
make its annual contribution to the 
Greek YMCA, its president re- 
plied “This year we will double 
our subscription I have seen the 
YMCA at Kokkinia ” The popular- 
ity of this programme has sharply 
reduced Communist influence in 
the area 

Jerusalem, Israel Here, where the 
Arabs are a minoritv and bitterness 
against them is explosive and in- 
ci easing, Moslems, Jews and Chris- 
tians play in the YMCA basketball 
teams, use the athletic field — one of 
the finest in Israel — without dis- 
crimination The director of physi- 
cal education is a lew, but his asso- 
ciate director is an Arab-Christian. 
Moslems, Jews and Armenians are 
in Its prr/c-winning swimming 
team 

“We don’t take our hates to the 
\ ,” a \oung Jew told me 

In nearby Na/arcth, largest Arab 
communitv in Israel, the Commu- 
nists’ aggressne, well-subsidized 
programme for youth was virtually 
unchallenged until the YMCA 
moved in in 1Q50 Today the Y 
centre, financed by an International 
Committee grant, is directly across 
the street from Communist head- 
quarters, and Its growing member- 
ship is increasingly recruited from 
voung men once drawn to the Com- 
munists 

Assiuty Upper Egypt On this, the 
Arab side of the bitter conflict, it is 
the Jewish minority which is hated 
and ostracized When I arrived at 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


May 


34 


the YMCA in Assiut, one 
of Egypt’s largest cities, a 
boys* parliament was de- 
bating a vote of censure 
against its “cabinet” for 
alleged mismanagement 
of a recent hike and pic- 
nic. When one speaker 
got a hearty round of a[)- 
plause, mv Eg\ptian host 
said “That could hap 
pen only here at the S 
That bov is a Jew ” 

In Cairo, when the Is 
raeli-Arab war began in 
1947, clubs and othei gath 
ering places once open to 
Jews were closed to them 
Then thegeneral secretary 
of the Egyptian YMCA, 
an Egyptian, went to 
the hcacl of the Jewish 
communiiv with an in- 
vitation endorsed by the 
Y’s board of directors 
“Make the YMCA yoiii 


The British ^MCA is also responsible for 
pioneer work abroad Our Overseas ( ommit- 
tLC of the National Council of the YMCA runs 
iilong similar lines to the International Com- 
mitttc, which is composed of Canadian and 
Xmcrican YMCA members only Both Com 
initttes Work under the co-ordination ot the 
World’s Alliance of YMCAs in Ckneva 
The British Overseas Committee ha\e allo- 
lattd 13,000 for pioneer work during the 
\eai 1954 They already support trained 
\ MC \ i>ecretarks in the Gold Coast, Kenya 
and Irak, as well as an Indian Secietary who 
IS acting telueational Secittary lor the 
^ MC \s in India, Pakistan C evlon and 
Burma Recently, they ha\e receued urgent 
tills to send puineer secretaries to M ilaya 
Nigeria and the (\iribbean, and ilu\ are now 
looking for men ol the right cpialilu ations 
rh( first \ \f( A wa> tounded m the ( ity ol 
I ondon in 1S44, b) a gr )up of young men 
he leled by Citorgc Williams The Gieat L\ 
hibilK)!] (>1 1851 brought oppoi tuniiies tor a 
gii It eampaigh among ffireign visitors, and 
the tirsi Ameriean \M('\ was opened in Bos- 
ton in 1H51 The British Assoeiation moved 
to iheir present headqiiarti rs in fin at Russell 
Stre( i, W (' ■», 111 i(>i 2 


community home and meeting 
place ’* Many hundreds did 
The International Committee 
supports an overseas American staff 
of *55 “fraternal” secretaries, they 
are sent only whcic the need is 
established ind urgent request is 
made Their mission is to share their 
“know-how” in training loeal youth 
leaders and speeding the growth of 
a scT-supporting, self propagating 
YMCA movement 
Convinced of the growing im- 
portance of Africa to the free world, 
the International Committee has 


launehed its newest work in two 
key African countries Liberia and 
Ethiopia 

I)a\c Howell, a Y-expenenred 
American Negro, was sent to Li- 
beria five years ago There was then 
no imjiortant community yyork for 
the boys and young men of this, 
Africa’s first, Negro repubhc There 
were few playgniunds, few organ- 
ized sports, no boys’ clubs, school 
attendance was low, juyenile de- 
linquency was high and increasing 

Howell’s first Y was the veranda 
of his own house, his first members 



1954 DEVELOP TODAY'S YOUTH FOR TOMORROW'S WORLD 35 


were ten small boys he rounded up 
from the streets Within a month 
the \cntiirc had grown so fast that 
Howell mo\cd it to three rented 
looms and sf t up courts on sandv 
w.isU ground tor haskct-hall 
A few weeks ago in Monrovia I 
attcneled a rnonthlv meeting of the 
hoard of directors e)f the Liberian 
^ M(V\. Its 27 members elude 
four members of the C\ihmet, the 
diiettor of th( Nation >1 Public 
Health Ser\iec, the Ma\oi of Mon 
ro\ia, the publisher of the dailv 
newspapei , twe) judges, clerg\men, 
l.ivv\ers busiiK'ssmcn 

A short distance treim our meet- 
ing place the new j[ 20,000 ^ MCA 
building was nearing completion 
One ejuarter of the funds to eicct it 
came fieim the International Com- 
mittee, the rest w'as raised in Mon 
io\ia in a communit\ wide monc\- 
raising c'lmpaign William Tub- 
man, President of Liberia, was the 
fiis contributor anel laid the e'eirncr- 
stoiK In a elo/en parts e)f the eitv 
there aie thrixing self gen erning 
albliated ilubs cnlistini: hundrc'ds 
of secondarv se'luK)! bo\s Their 
e\am[)le has apprceiabK increased 
school attendanee 

In lMhK)pia, when the first 
^ MCvA wf)rk began in 11)48, the 
So\Rts were aware that this coun- 
tr\ could be the Red gateway to 
Africa I hey were already on the 
job in force In Addis Ababa, the 
’-apital, their educational and in- 
formation centre, manned by 100 
Communist professionals, was mak- 


ing headway among young people. 

The YMCA sent a single secre- 
tary — Miehtl Wassef, a young 
Egyptian, product of the Egyptian 
YMCA The gosernment loaned 
Wassef u small building, rent free, 
which was soon o\crcTOwdcd with 
('.hnstians, Moslems and Jews. 
Emperor Haile Selassie gave two 
acics of land in the centre of the 
city as site for a new building, made 
the first contribution towards the 
building fund and assigned several 
\oungmcn, at go\ernmcnt expense, 
to aid the programme 

"I he programme made headway, 
but in T951 the SoMCt centre was 
still attracting more Ethiopian youth 
than the YMCA An American 
‘‘fraternaP' scentarv, an expert in 
industrial training, wms sent to 
Addis Ababa He took the Y’s 
sports programme to outiying needy 
districts He set up a campers’ pro- 
gi amine which enlisted more than 
Soo b()\s Tw'o hundred \oung men 
regularK began to attend weekly 
e III rent events lectures and debates 
\n outdoor adult-cdiieation pro- 
gi.irnnK on health and sanitation 
drc'vv eiowds that averaged more 
ih in 8,000 

Last spring the new YMC'A build- 
ing— [xiid tor b\ contributions from 
Ethiopians and members of the 
Arab, (neck, Indian and Armenian 
communities — was dedicated by the 
Em[)cror 1 he ^'MCA has long 
since cclipstd the Soviet centre in 
popularitv , today it is outdrawmg 
It by an estimated nine to one 



The 

TBest ftdvice 
I Lver Had 


B> Harry Emerson Fosdick 

Fotmerly Pastor of The Rnersidt Church 
\iu \ ork 

M V FATHER, a secondarv-school 
headmaster, bidding m \ 
mother good-bye on the front steps 
of our home one morning, said to 
her* “Tell Harry that he can cut 
the grass today, if he feels like it “ 
Then, after walking a few steps 
down the street, he called, “Tell 
Harry he had better feel like it ” 
That afternoon, although like any 
tcemager I had other plans, I cut 
the grass and, chuckling over mv 
father’s remark, found that the job 
was not too bad Before I had fin 
ished I really liked it I never dream- 
ed, however, that 6o years after- 
wards I would be hearing the echo 
of my father’s wise counsel If you 
don’t get tasl{s you like, like the 
tasks you get 

I could not escape from that, 
even in school I hated mathematics 


When I reached the university 1 
longed for the day when no more 
of the miserable stuff would be re- 
quired of me Meanwhile, the com- 
pulsory courses confionted me — that 
grass had to be cut Then my 
father’s advice clicked I had better 
feel like it Believe it or not, when 
the compulsory courses in mathe- 
matics were finished, I chose others, 
right up to differential calculus 
Any layman who supposes that a 
minister on Tuesday morning starts 
preparing his Sunday sermon be- 
cause he spontaneously feels like it 
should guess again Preparing a 
good sermon is hard work, and far 
too many preachers think up all 
sorts of excuses for not tackling it 
They know that sermonic grass has 
to be cut, but they will wait till they 
feel like it Endless times on Tues- 
day morning, facing another ser- 
mon's preparation, I have heard the 
echo of mv fathe:r’s voice “Tell 
Harry he had better feel like it ’’ 
This counsel has helped me espe- 
cially in dealing with drudgery No 
matter how thrilling the high spots 
in any yocation may be — and I 
have found the ministry full of 
them — anv calling is like an ice- 
berg, its peak visible but most of it 
under water, invisible routine, un- 
inspiring details, drudgery 
Now that I h.iyc come to three- 
score years and 15 and face old age, 
I still hear my father saying about 
growing old, “Tell Harry he had 
better feel like it ” 



How The 




Oik* AfsK : »■: ;r • \ i 


By Sit Not man Angell 


HE iFRRnoRiEs of thc British 
Commor wealth (excluding 
in this discussion the Asian Domin- 
ions) embrace a much larger area 
and contain greater resources, hu- 
man and material, than does the 
United States Why, then, is the 
Commonwealth less powertul than 
thc United States in the influence it 
exercises m thc world and, largcK, 
less successful in improving thc 
standard of li\ing of its peoples^ 

The explanation is that thc 48 

w - * ^ ^ 1 * i'ia ^ ' 

Sir Norm\n Xnt m i , now 79, has diMtlcd 
his 60 \cars ol )ournahsm and authorship 
about cquall) bttwtin Oicat Hriiain, the 
United Staffs anil France At 17 ytari ol agt 
Ik tnugrattd to the United Suits to bicoint 
a farm-hand, cowboy, miner, prospector, 
ntwspajicr icportcr Later ht joined tin 
stair ol a Pans newspaper and was tor ten 
ytais thc general manager of the Coi ttnental 
Daily Mail He is thc author of some 40 
books dealing with international affairs and 
economies One, Ihe Gieat Illusion has been 
translated into ^5 languages He sat in the 
House of Commons from 1929 to 1931 as a 
Labour Member, was awarded thc Nobtl 
Peace Prize for 1933 


The bonds of feeling and fel- 
lowship in the Commonwealth, 
so greatly strengthened by the 
Queen s tour, should be turned 
into a political and constitu- 
tional unity Only thus can the 
immense potentialities of the 
Commonwealth be made actual, 

states of the American Union make 
a firmly integrated political unit. 
The absence of tariffs between thc 
states and the existence of a com- 
mon monetary system make pos- 
sible the vast market necessary for 
thc large-scale mass production of 
consumer goods that fosters a high 
living standard And an industry so 
equipped can readily be adapted to 
the production of military equip-- 
ment on a similar great scale. 

By contrast, the British Common- 
wealth IS so little a political unit 
that It has not even a government* 
There is a government of Canada^ 




I ML KhAUtK b UlUHai 


another of Australia, another of 
New Zealand, .mother of South 
Africa, another ot Hritain But 
there is no government ot the C'om 
monwealth, no common tarifT and 
monetary s\stcm Australia, in 
order to elc\clop its own textile in- 
dustr\, puts a tariB on textiles, to 
the impoverishment or the British 
industry When the Australian 
pound tails below the \aliie ot the 
British pound, purchase ot laitish 
goods IS restricted in order to sus- 
tain the Australian eiinene\, thus 
adding: to the eeonomie burdens ot 
Britain Cmada is not e\en within 
the sterling area, but on a elollar 
basis 

The Advantages of I rnon 
In its caih \ears the United 
States, under the Articles (d (Con- 
federation, w'hieh tried to satisfv 
the demands of each state tor ceo- 
nomic independence, went through 
most of the diffieubics the (Com- 
monwealth IS now encountering 
But in ijSq, after i detade of e'co 
nomic disorder and crisis, eai^h of 
the states agreed to limit its inde- 
pendence suflicientK to c reate areal 
Union This was something the 
British Empiic, in its ( \(diition into 
Commonwealth, has failed to do 
True, there arc oee.ision.il e (infer- 
ences between C.omrnonwealth gew- 
ernments, bur tins dots not make a 
Union ill the \orth American sc nse 
A worldwide Bniish Union 
would add greatl\ to the defensive 
strength of the West Russia makes 


May 

no secret of her hopes that she may 
use the considerable Communist 
parties of France, Cjcrmany and 
ItaK to paralvse the clTecti\cncss of 
an\ alliance among those countiies 
as an instiumcnt of resistance to 
Russian expansion ITc British 
Parliament, in contrast to those of 
Fr.mce .mel Itah, docs not include 
a single ('ommumsl, and in the 
politiL^ (it the overseas Dominions 
( 'omiiumism [)la\s no real role 
^ct, curioiisK, much of w'orld 
opinion seems a\tI^e to the Domin- 
ions' doing what the 4S American 
st.itcs have done in (ormmg .1 U'pion 
1 he attitude seem^ to he prompted 
h\ the iissumption that the Domin- 
ions still have colonial st.ilus and 
arc not lealK free, that eom[)lete in- 
clcpendcnee for all wlu) desire it is 
horh the piercejuisitc and gu.ir.mtee 
ol a pc ace till world 
These assumptions ignore present- 
el.iv facts 

IndependerKe Tnules is'i^ression 
Tvki the [)oinl of independenee 
as the road to peace I'he nations 
that went to w.u in 1(^4 and again 
in i9^() were .ill ^omplclcK inde- 
pendent and sovereign Not one was 
the victim of im[)erialist oppre>sion. 
"I'liev W'cnl to w ir not hce.iuse they 
lacked independence hut lice.iu^e 
each had clung to it so tcn.iciouslv 
as to make impossible an\ dleetive 
eo operation for common defence, 
anything resembling that interna 
tion.il community w'c arc now so 
laboriousK tr\ing to set up. 



t954 

Russia’s present cold war — per- 
haps the most serious threat that 
Christendom has ever faced — is not 
the war of a colonial or oppressed 
people “nghtl\ struggling to be 
free ” It has not been provoked by 
the presence of an alien government, 
or foreign troops on Russian soil 
Nevertheless, the slog.ins which fig- 
ure most promiiK ntlv in Soviet 
propag»inda are eoneernecl with the 
“rights ol national independenee” 
threatened In “warmongering im- 
[lerialists " W'e thus have the aston- 
ishing spectacle of an impenahst 
power w'hich in a few ve.irs has 
sv\'e[)t awav the inde pc ndt nee of 
half a seoie of >atellites exploiting 
the ver) ideals it aims to destrov 

The explanation is not diflieult 
ITt (x)mmiinists aie aware of the 
intense emotion, as well as the intel- 
leelual confusion, inspired In sueh 
a word as “independence ” I he eal- 
culation IS, ejf ceiuise, th<it if this 
emotion prevents the nations of 
'/v'eslern hurope from sui lendenng 
sLiflicienl indt pe nefence to fe>rm a 
workable defensive alliance then 
Russia will nevei h.i\e to meet an\- 
thing as stiong as herself, and will 
be able to applv what Churchill has 
called “the simple and de.idlv plan 
of one b\ r)ne to ,ichieve wh.it 
she* has alieadv done with J.atvia, 
Lithuinia, hste nia, Poland, Ru- 
mania, Hungarv , Htilgaiia C'^eiho- 
slovakia, AfnanM .me! (yhina, and 
hopes to do with Indo-China, Indo- 
nesia, Huima and, ulti match, India 
and Africa 


Obviously, one means of meeting 
that threat is for the nations of the 
British Commonwealth, which en- 
circle the globe, to form a closer 
Union, reversing the tendency to- 
wards separateness which has been 
so strong in the British Common- 
wealth for the past century 

Many people fail to appreciate 
how' greativ the Ikitish Empire has 
been transformed over the past loo 
vears When Icciunng to audiences 
outside mv r>vvn countiv, I have 
been asked such questions as “When 
is Biitain going to give Cinada her 
freedom " ' ^ et it is nearly 30 years 
since an Imperial Conference de- 
elared that each Dominion “an 
autonomous eommumtv, equal in 
st.itus, m no wxiv Hibordmate one 
to anothei in anv aspect ol domestic 
or foieign adairs “ The statute gov- 
erning then relationship even rccog- 
m/es their r’ght of secession from 
the Commonwealth 

PdTlnvrship fosters Strength 

li XII to the good that the 
Dominions should have exchanged 
a subordmale position in an Em- 
[:)ne fo^ equ.ilitv of status in a Com- 
mcaiwealth Ihit equalitv is not to 
be confused with .m absolute inde- 
pendence which none can possess. 
'Phe government of one people by 
another is a hateful relationship. 

I he right alternative to that rela- 
tionship IS not tor both to be indc- 
pcndeni It is tor both to form a 
partnership But a partnership in 
which the parties arc completely in- 


HOW THE COMMONWEALTH COULD LEARN 



dependent is a mere contradiction 
in terms. Right and freedom, 
whether of men or of nations, are 
incapable of defence without sur- 
render of minor freedoms in order 
to preserve greater ones. 

The Commonwealth nations have 
so many ties of sentiment and his- 
tory that It should be readilv possi- 
ble for them to apply the lessons of 
unification provided bv American 
history. In any case it is time we 
asked what is to follow the dissolu- 
tion of the British Empire We have 
too readily assumed that the dissolu- 
tion of any imperial authority must 
automatically be followed bv condi- 
tions more favourable to freedom, 
peace and welfare History dc^es not 
confirm such a conclusion When 
the Roman Empire fell, it was not 
followed by something better but 
by the Dark Ages 

The history of the United States 
itself has demonstrated that there 
arc cases in which the preservation 
of unity is of greater value than the 
satisfaction of even a justifiable 
daim to independence The Con- 
federacy based its claim for inde- 
pendence on the verv terms of the 
Declaration of Independence, and 
more than one American historian 
has written that if ever there was a 
good case for self-determination the 
South possessed it Lincoln denied 
Jthc claim, though denial brought 
about the American Civil War. Yet 
history has fully justified Lincoln. 
For if the American Union had 
broken up, there could not have 


been in the First World War, nor 
in the Second, nor in the present 
cold war, the American contribu- 
tions to the defence of the West, 
without which Western civilization 
would have been overwhelmed. 

If on such grounds we may justify 
America’s maintenance of political 
unitv, we may well consider another 
fact of recent history If there had 
been no British Empire in 1940 
after the fall of France, no Gibraltar 
(now demanded by Franco), no 
Malta, no troops in Egypt to meet 
Rommel and defend the Suez Ca- 
nal (in the Egypt which now de- 
mands complete evacuation of Brit- 
ish troops from the Canal Zone) — 
if dissolution of the Empire to that 
extent had already taken place in 
1940, It IS as ceitain as an\ thing 
can be in military affairs that Britain 
would have had to follow France 
in surrender to Hitler 

In dissohing political unions or 
authorities, timing and conditions 
are of the essence It may be right 
and desirable that the white man 
should withdraw his authority alto- 
gether from, say, Africa But it 
should be done under such condi- 
tions that withdrawal would not 
mean simply handing the African 
continent over to Moscow, adding 
a further vast reservoir of human 
material to that already available 
in China tor the purposes ci world 
Communism 

The free world cannot afford to 
regard possibilities such as these 
with indifference. 




Berlin’s Tin-Can Observatory 


Condensed f}om the Sivhs weel{l\, l^ou) Toii^ 
I D Raulift anJ ('Lius Cuicdtmann 


/\siRo\c)\iv IS studded with names 
of great observatories (irccn- 
wieh, Palomar and Mount Wilson 
\nother should be added the 
gi Libby little Wilhelm Focrstei ()b- 
scr\atory in Berlin Improvised from 
scrap and built on a heap of luoblc', 
the Foerstci* mav never create an) 
great se'ientific stir, but it is an un- 
paralleled example ot what pluck 
and energ) can accomplish in the 
face of mountainous dilHi ulties. 

The Foerster is the handiwork of 
two untrained but dedicated men — 
Hans Muhle, mechanic, and Hans 
Rcchlin, an actor Vluhle, a compart 
little man with mild blue eyes and 
an Einstein haircut, had been taken 


Two amateiits with no money build 
an obu^}vato)y on a iuhble heap 

prisoner b\ U S troc»ps in Austria 
aftei the Cjcrman Arm)'s defeat. 
Reehlin, small, dark l)o\ ish-faced, 
was taken prisoner in Norway. 
When lelcMsed, both headed for 
Berlin Muhle got a job with an 
o})tieal coinpanv Reehlin, with no 
hope of a etage job, fell back on his 
hobb\ — astronom) He built a small 
telescope, set it up in a public 
square, and charged 30 pfennigs 
(then less than a penny) to look at 
the moon. Mars or Saturn A chance 
meeting of the two men in 1947 rc- 

4 ^ 


Pour Tout (January 19-25. 1954). copyright 1954 by 
P/itjr Tnut nal^t^ R^ntamtn Lausanne. Switzerland 



fME READWS digest " May 


vealcd their mutu.il interest in as- 
tronomy Soon Muhle was reporting 
each night to help Rcchlin set up his 
telescope 

Berlin had two ohscrv itories — 
both in Russian hands, both dit ofl 
from the 2,50(),oo(' W'est Berliners 
Watching the people who lined up 
each night to lo(»k thiough Reeh 
lin’s telescope, Muhle had in idea 
Whv not build an obser\ator\, a 
real obser\atoi\, foi their t itv " 

The proposal was preposteious ot 
course Together the twe men had 
less than £20 A lens lor even a 
model ate si/ed tele sc op. would ctist 
^1,500 or more, a complete obs( i 
vatorv w is out of the e|iit stion Still, 
night alter night, the\ talked then 
imfiossible scheme into a piojcel 
Perhaps they could subslnutc energv 
nnd ingenuitN loi moiv \ \ gionp 

of youngsters who hung loiind the 
tcltseo[K iKeanie inociikited with 
enthusiasm ‘ We 11 help, thev said, 
“aftci sehoid and week ends ’ 

Mulile and Reihlin scoured ihe 
outskirts ol Berlin lor a possilde 
observatory site In Fc mpelhol , neai 
Berlin’s airport, iIk v huind il the 
bombed-out iiiin ol an olliceis’ 
club No high biiildiiigs neaibv ob 
strueted the view ol the skies ( it\ 
authorities, when .tppioichcd, were 
sceptical, but agreed to let the 
building to them lor a pound a 
month 

In October 11^47 Reehlin, Muhle 
and six teen-age boss, each armed 
with a bucket, l)egan (he b.iek- 
breaking task of clearing aw'ay the 


debris and building a cement plat- 
form on which to mount telescopes 
For the cement Rechlm and Muhle 
bartered their bread ration on the 
black market — enght loayes tor one 
bag 

Work wx'nt on all winter, one of 
the wwst m Berlin's histoiy liands 
and Icet weie niinih with cold, but 
spirits w'cre' high An old cauldron, 
kept full ot bubbling potato soup, 
[irovidcd warmth and tneigv for 
the workers Meagie hinds came 
Irom two soiiicLs Miihic’s jiay 
packet mel whatever Rechlm could 
puk up vyilh his Ic Ic scope 

ihe least damaged loom m the 
I limed hiuldmg was icpaind anel 
looted this hciamc i vvoikshop 
Here, unde I 1 smoking parallin Ian 
kin, the two men hiiill the ohserva 
loiv s lust ulc scope B\ li iditional 
si indaids, ii vv a ludicious allaii 
\ Icngtli ol 12 inch scvvci pipe, 
l(‘imd in the rums, v\as the barrel 
Salv igcel jupe iillings and an iron 
llagpidc made the mounting Fhi 
kie Scope had to move ui order to 
liiek stirs icioss the sk\ tor iiine- 
exposure [)hotogr i[)hs An old 
gramoph(;nc motor solved this 
prohle m 

1 he higgc'sl stumhling block Was 
the optical cijuipmcnt, which v/ould 
have cost thousands ol neui'Cv istent 
marks lUil xMuhlc met .111 amateur 
lens giindci, llennann (irandt, 
who worked in a chocolate factory 
In his (lat (irandt had an incredible 
rig, an ancient sewing machine con- 
verted into a foot-powered lens 



‘954 

grinder. Grandt enthusiastically 
agreed to grind the lenses — free 
By the spring of 1948 the first 
telescope was rcad\ Its cost five 
shillings for welding the barrel 
Word spread througli \\ est Ber- 
lin V'^isiiors fioeked to tlu little 
“(jl)ser\ ator\ " Oik* looni became a 
lecture hall where wcckl\ classes in 
astronomv weic held fc( , li\c shil- 
lings a month Gnc simple class of 
30 people included a teacher, a 
nurse, a locksmith, a factory worker 
and m 11 \ cai old h(j\ 

As interest grew, hel[i fiowc d in 
One member ot the class, an elec- 
trician, \oIuntccTcd to wire the 
building \ pliiiiibcr [)ut in a w.Uci 
svsttrn, using m(»stl\ siKagcd (Mpe 
A poitiait photographer built a 
photo kib, sinks were made liom 
l)alhroom tiles lound in the rums, 
ind light rerteetors from scrap 
kettles 

I he baby observator\ needed a 
name Mnhlc and Rcehlin decided 
to hcjiioLir a lormer director of 
the Bcilin f )bsei\atoi\, Wilhelm 
b'oerstcr, who had done much to 
['‘ojiulai i/c .istionom\ 

Week b\ w'cek the crowds in- 
c I eased More telescopes were le 
cjuired, ind Muhle and Rechlin 
built them — a total ui eight I 'or 
one of them a i2 inch miiroi was 
wanted Such minors must be 
ground to exacting tolerances 
Grandt said he could grind such a 
mirror, but he needed a thick piece 
of glass Muhle found it m the ruins 
of the Berlin aquarium an inch 


and a half thick, it had once been 
part of a big fish tank 

At his wife’s suggestion, Muhle 
gave up his job to devote his whole 
time to the obscr\ator\ She got a 
job with an insuiance eompan). 

He started exchanging informa- 
tion with observatories in Kngland, 
Holland, Swit/erland anti the 
United States d’heic were regular 
contiibutions to the (iciman As- 
tionowKdl Nen's 1 he small, hand- 
made observatory was becoming 
scic ntilicalK established 

One day just before Christmas, 
i()5o, Rcchlin .irri\ed it the ob- 
ser\aU)i\ in a state ol excitement 
He had iound a telescope in the 
luuis ot the old Liania Observatory 
m the British sector — one with a 12- 
ineli lens .ind a 20-loot barreP Ex- 
posed to r.iin and snow for five 
ve.iis. It looked like .1 rusted wreck, 
i)ut the lens was iiiMet And they 
could have it— il tb.e^ could dis- 
mantle and move the five-ton m- 
stiLiment 

A h.uil.igc company wanted /350 
foi I he joh Muhle and Rcchlin un- 
dertook the task themselves Bor- 
rowing linesmen s belts, block and 
tavkle, and other ecjuipmcnt, they 
look the l( lescope apart Next came 
iliL piobkm ot getting the heavy 
pirts move cl The mounting post 
alone weighed a ton I’hc U S Army 
lent them a tiuek equipped with a 
hoist 

Student briekkncrs from Berlin’s 
building-t lades school built a room 
t(* house the instrument. Bricks 


mr-C/fAf OBSERVATOkY 



'he readers Dt<SESt 


came from the rubble pile cidjoining 
the observatory 

Then in the summer of 1952, be- 
fore the overhaul on the big tele- 
scope could be finished, Kechlin 
died Finances were at a low ebb 
Muhle — after H\c \eais of thank- 
less, round- lilt clock w'oik -- was 
ready to gi\e up lUit tfu l)( rlin tit\ 
council rose to the occ ision, xoted 
the ob’^cr\ator\ y 1 750 1 vt u to 


cairy on — a remarkable tribute in 
a cilv as impoverished as Berlin 
With this expression of confi 
dcncc, Muhle started laving new 
plans, auKjng them an expedition to 
observe the solar ce'lipse in Sweden 
this nimmei Other observatories 
will send their expeditions to 
SwecLn in stvle The Foerster ex- 
pedition will probablv have to hitch- 
hike Its wav — but It will be mere* 


kangaroo Words 

Hcti O' Dill ,n The AmcniLm Magazine 

J. WORD is one which carries within ’ts spelling (in 
normal order) a sm illcr v'oid whkh is a perfect syn()n)m for Uselt 
For c\4im[)lc, nou how the word, // L K R I LS, eonl uns, in its 
natural sc^utiiu, th( synonym, IIILS Listed below ^irc several 
more ot these ha’uv c mying words So hop to it and see it you caii 
find the synonym hiding m each one Answers .ippear on page 100 


1 1 ) 1 '( 1 \Si I) 

2 ILLI'\II\A 1 M) 
1 AHKK AlION 

4 SALVAGE 

5 SEP A KAIL 

(. C \TU (;MB 
7 SAT LSI I ED 
S EXISTS 
i) REC'LiNF 
lu APPKOPKIATh 


11 ROTLND 

12 OHShRV’E 

M REVOlUTlON 

14 MARKET 

15 FALADE 

It) DELIBERATE 

17 PANTALOONS 

18 PRECIPITA1IO^ 
u) SUPERVISOR 

20 IlOSiELR^ 


Advkl to husbands Women love' to he stnpnscd Some Sund.iy 
morning slip down to the kitchen and prepare a tray Put on bacon 
and eggs and orange )uiee Place the morning paper next to a 
steaming cup of coffee and, as a final touch, acid a tiny rosebud 
Whv.n everything is ready, carry the tray into the dining-room and 
have a leisurely breakfast 

When your bride comes down she will be delighted to find that 
you've eaten and got out of the way Collier’s 



Tlic day loo refugees from a pet shop took over downtown New York 



Out on the Kazzle 


By Henry Trefflich As told to Barnard Kendric^ 

I BOUT 10 15 on Saturday morning, May ii, 1946, 
,1 lights began to flash and telephones to jangle 
, S at the Old Slip police station in New York 
City A moment later came the not call Nearby 
Fulton, Vesev and Church streets were jammed 
with people Downtown New York, the business 
quarter, was being taken over by monkeys ^ 

At 9 45 that morning Gus Hildebrand, an em- 
ployee in my pet shop at 215 Fulton Street, had 
noted a monkey entangled in the wire mesh of his 
cage. Gus opened the door of the cage and un- 
tangled the little fellow, who promptly raced out 
Before Gus could make a move, 19 other monkeys, 
gibbering with glee, followed the leader. 

The monkeys held a quick consultation and ap- 
parently decided that it would be unfair to leave 
their fellow primates behind bars In an instant 
they had opened the other four cages and So more 
monkeys poured into the room. Then, while Gus 
was frantically trying to trap some of them, one 
bright little fellow opened the door of the room 
and discovered, there in the hallway, a ladder lead- 
ing to an open skylight * Immediately the 99 other 
monkeys followed him up the ladder to the roof— 
and to freedom 



Condensed from *'They Never Talk Back” 


45 



40 


THE READER^S QlCEST 


May 


Chester Gordon, emplovee 
of a grocer’s shop nearby, was in the 
third-floor store rocjin showing a cus- 
tomer a new sto\.k of eoflec when 
a cloud of 40 monkess entered 
noisily through an open window 
behind him Mr (Gordon turned his 
attention to the half of the \isiiois 
who were opening sacks of coflee 
and aromatic spices 1 he customer 
made his way to the ground floor, 
accompanied h\ the oth^r half, non- 
coffee dnnkeis who meani to iines- 
tigate the bananas in the fruit de- 
partment 

Though a little green, the bananas 
proved edible, and suKe salesmen 
and customers had obligingly left, 
everything was cjuitc corn i\ lal until 
some dogs tried to chisel m "I he sc 
strays were greeted with a barrage 
of banana skins, bottles and tins 
from the shcKes The dogs beat a 
strategic retreat 

Exhibiting remaikable presence 
of mind, Mr (jordon slammed the 
upstairs window^ shut, then clashed 
downstairs and shut .ill the other 
windows and doors "I went\ min- 
utes later the 40 monke\ s (netted bv 
officials of the Society for Prc\en- 
tion of Cruelty to Animals) and Mr 
Gordon were remcned fr(;m the 
shop — alive and unharmed 

. . Evers wms cjuict at the 

three-storev fire station in Fulton 
Street, nctb.ill game was under- 
way on the roof, and on the second 
floor two firemen were engaged in 
a game of draughts. 


“It’s your move,” one player said 
impatiently “Why are you sitting 
there staring at the walP” 

The other man shook his head as 
it to clear hi’* brain “Five monke)s 
just slid down the pole,” he said 
“One was holding a netball ” 

F.verv thing broke loose at once 
l\vo irate firemen burst into the 
room vcflmg, “Who stole our net- 
balP” just then all the showers in 
the adjoining changing room were 
turned on full force I he changing 
room door flew' open and five more 
monkevs rm glcefullv to the shinv 
biass pole and disappeared to the 
floor below A fireman dashed into 
the changing loom and g.ized in 
stunned disbcliet at ten monkeys 
taking showers 

For 35 minutes cverv member of 
the lire brigade chased monkeys 
over and under the esc.ipe-engine, 
up the slairs and down the brass 
pole Then the akurn sounded 
When the escape-engine staitcd to 
move, ten monkeys were left t.iking 
showers, while the other ten clung 
to the machine The firemen didn’t 
have far to go it was just a call 
from down the street where a ladder 
was needed to get some monkeys 
oil a buildmg Put when the escape- 
engine rolled to a stop, a policeman 
lOok one look and shook his head 
“It ain’t possible,” he said “They’re 
bringing ; 

The Tiinity Church choir- 
master was starting a practice ses- 
sion with his choirboys at the Ful- 





MONKEYS our ON TtiE RAZZIE 


British monkeys show as lively a taste for 
town-life as the New York monkeys in this 
story During one month — last November — 
the newspapers carried stones of no less than 
6o escaped monkeys 

One of them, Jackie, a fivc-ycar-old Verset 
monkey, found his passfx)rt to freedom in 
Pimlico He spent two and a half hours dodg- 
iPg policemen in the back gardens of Ebury 
Street before he was eventually caught 

But the monkey that caused the most chaos 
was unnamed and unclaimed He fed on a 
diet of bananas and sprouts, thieved from the 
stalls at Ilford Market, before fancying an ex- 
ploration into an Ilford china shop Bowls, 
plates and a dinner set came to grief while 
two policemen, a policewoman and seven 
other people chased him round the shop 


ton Street mission house When at 
last he got the 27 eheiirhoys ejuictcn- 
L‘cl down, he struck his tuning fork, 
raised his huger to give the beat — 
and then one of the bo\s giggled 
“I’m sori\, sir,” the giggler said, 
“but there’s ,1 monke'v on the piano 
Another just eamc in tlic window ” 
A mcjment later there weie tour 
l)ovs on top of the piano, but lunv 
the monkev was hanging from a 
ehandelicr The second monkc\ was 
swinging gailv from a curtain rod 
T’hc ehoirmastei e'almK elosedthe 
window lie had been dealing with 
ehoirboss for a number of \eais — 
what were a couple of monkev s'' 
With rnilitarv precision he broke 
the choir up into sejuads of four, 
arming carh sejuad with a loose 
cover stripped from a chair The 
monkeys proved no match for the 
boys The two were bagged in seven 


4 

minutes flat and deposited 
in the corner to wait for 
their owner 

A IJ/VRKEI CIIFSTED 
longshoreman, Pete by 
name, was just winding 
up a three- week binge. 
That Satiirelav morning 
he eliifte'el into the WTitc 
Reise Tavern in Fulton 
Street, /irdcied a drink 
rui looked luiind 
1 le reached for his 
dunk It wasn't there. 
Fete gunned sheepishly 
and pretended he’d been 
reaching for a cigarette. 
I le wasn't going to tell the harman 
that hall a dozen monkev s had just 
come along and one had drunk his 
whiskv F>ul a lew minutes later 
the baiman telephoned the police 
“Ihv.theie’s i gu\ he re se learning, 
''Thin Lite no monk^t^’s in here^ 
Thctc tin no tni)n{cys in heic^**' 
“Oh, DTs,” the otlieer said 
“No’ lie s eia/v T lie place is 
full of them ’ ” 

1 1 w \s three months he fore all the 
mcaikevs w'ere rounded up One 
little lemalc relieate d int(j the drums 
and e ihles that operate the lift in 
Ckillanan s (iroeeiv Sioie Areporter 
photographed hei sejuatting on the 
eahic drum The pietuie a[)peared 
in the New Yoik DluI\ Minot next 
moimiig, eaptioned vvt'vE been 

WAIIINC, VFVRS 70 USF THIS GAG — 
/V MC NkFY WFNCH IN THE WORKS. 



^ Three solutions to the mystery of 
why some people rub you the 
wrong way 

Hate 

at First Sight 

Hv Stuart Chase 

thy do we somenrnts take a 
strong dislike to a strangt'i on 
first meeting^ Somclx)d\ who has 
never injured us in am wav may 
arouse a sharp antagonism a new 
face appears in school or otHcc or 
shop and our blood pressure begins 
to mount Why ' hat produces 
this irrational, even embarrassing 
response ^ 

Rcccnllv, a group of psychiatrists 
and industrial psvchologists held a 
series of conferences to trv to answer 
this question The medical director 
of an important sugir icfinciv led 
the discussions Putting their minds 
to work on many cases that they 
had experienced or ol)^ervcd, these 
social scientists found an answer 
Every case laid on the table fell 
into one of three classes Your irra- 
tional dislike of someone whom vou 
may not even have met piobably 
arises because. 

He, or she, reminds vou forcibly 
of someone you dislike or have dis- 
liked; or he shows a quality which 


you dislike in yourself, or he repre- 
sents a threat to your security. (You 
are afraid of what he may do to your 
job, voiir social standing, your pres- 
tigc, etc ) 

Ever since I heard the results of 
this interesting discussion, I have 
been watching mv own hasty dis- 
likes Time and again the three 
reasons fit When vou become aware 
of them, much of the sudden an- 
tagonism can be dissolved, this 
helps vou to get on better with 
people, to make fairer judgments 
about them 

Let us look more closely at each 
reason 

I. He reminds you of someone 
you dislike : 

The newcomei in the office is a 
tall man w'lth red hair and green 
eves \ears ago you bought seime 
worthless shaies from a tall man 
with red hair and green eves The 
associ.ition switchboard in your 
mind identities the new man with 
the old you hate an v one who looks 
like the man who made a fool of 
you 

All of us have Ix'en hurt by the 
actions of other [)eoplc — or think we 
have We rnav remember vividly 
certain characteristics of the one 
who administered the hint — the set 
mouth, the tone of voice, the nerv- 
ous walk — and the associative pro- 
cess rings a bell. 

This IS grossly unfair, of course, 
but It’s the way the mind works 
Fortunately, the mind is also able, 



by a little mature reflection, to dis- 
pel the unfairness. 

2. He reminds you of some- 
thing you dislike in yourself: 

The newcomer in the shop is al- 
ways trying to please the boss You 
are not above buttering up the boss 
\ ourself, but vou hate \ ourself for 
doing It He is also a champion alibi- 
makcr, one of vour failings So vou 
hate the new man for reminding 
vou of something you would rather 
not think about 

Perhaps the newcomer is a woman 
who talks too much, or smokes too 
much, or indulges in malicious gos- 
sip — things which vou have been 
known to do Perhaps the stranger 
comes from the same home town, 
persists in recalling old days at the 
local school- an era which you have 
been trying to forget 

3. He threatens your security: 

A newcomer appears in the office, 

a veiv competent performer Will 
he get that promotion you were 
hoping for^ Will he make your job 
less important^ \ou feel that just 
by being there he threatens vou 

A pretty widow, childless, moves 
next door Just the type that vour 
husband, vour sweetheart or youi 
brother falls for \ou can’t see her 
without an inner fear 

Or perhaps a new soprano joins 
the local choir .She has a good vojlc, 


yes, her manners are all right. But 
why should she get all the solo 
parts ? 

A new bov comes into your 
class at school lie knows all the 
answers Aftci school vou pick a 
light with him (See Tom Sawyer) 

Wt lend to dislike anyone who, 
iinwittinglv or not, makes us feel 
smaller, weaker, more foolish than 
we thought we were Thev spoil our 
picture ol ourselves \Vc were doing 
all right as a loicman, or wile — 
when suddtnK someone makes us 
fed th.it vve arc nut doing ill right. 
U IS an inttilcrablc feeling, which 
leads from trusiration to active dis- 
like 

d he reader can doubtless remem- 
ber othci illustr itions of irrational 
hate on liist sight Can he find one 
which docs not fit into the three 
classes^ \ IionC scientists could not. 

Meanwhile, profit bv their find- 
ings When vou (.\pcricnce blind 
hate, run over th^^ir list How to re- 
duce vour blood pressure then be- 
comes an intc resting adventure You 
will not alwavs be able to get it 
down — cspcciallv m the case of a 
potential threat to vour security (see 
number 3) lUit I predict that you 
can do it in enough cases to im- 
prove vour human relations, and to 
save considerable wear and tear on 
vour emotional machinery 


cS'ccciss in dealing with other people is like nuking rhubarb pie 
—use all the sugar you can, and then dc ublc u 


-- Funking 



Even in the world's tightest police state the 
desire for profit manages to raise its head ^ 

Russians 

BIlS 

Tliril a 
Rouble 

B\ I'oni 1 1 hitncx 

e i |i \OL DIAL *i certain IlIc- is owing in a variety ol legal and 

phone number in Moscow' illegal wm\s Consider the ease ot 

\ou can iriange to bu\ a \oung Rosa Marts nova, a model 

TV set within 24 hours- instead ot n, ember oh the Moscow braiKh ot 

the two 01 three months n takes to komsomol, the C.ommuijisi national 
get one from the estate run electrical south oigani/aLion Rosa made it a 
appliance stoic (>alls to other Mos- piaetiee last seai to get herself at 

cow numbers will summon such the head of tlie long e]utues that 

people as wa^iing machine sales- tormed at the doors of skimpils 
men, doclois, repair men and house stocked department stores when 
builders--all private cnteipiisers new shipments of goods arrived, 
ready to provide speedier or higher- LaK 1 she would use 11 hci pun bases 

quality services than the Soviet —at a handsome protit— to folk un- 

Government offers willing to stand m a (jucuc Con- 

It may sound sui prising, but cap vietcd as a “speeulator,” the term 

italism and free enterprise exist cm a givc-n to anv unauthorized private 

substantial scale right in the home proiit mal- er, Rosa is at piesent 

of Communism The phenomenon doing five vears in a Soviet gaol 

The (Communists can blame this 
Tom vvhnm^ ituntlv uiurncd lo the persistence of private enterprise on 
United ^atfsaftci nine \tars in Russia hist j-mid and incllieieilt SV Stem of 

as chiet of the economic sccnon ot tlic US ^ 

Embassy ir Moscow ind later as corre- 
spondent for the Assoruicd Prtss though the Soviets are now en- 


production and distribution Al- 



5« 


Condensed from The Wall Street Journal 





' RUSSIA'S^ CAPifAJUSTS TURN A PRETTY ROUBLE 5 /. 


gaged in a much-publicized drive to 
make more consumer goods avail- 
able, experts believe that only one 
m three Russian villages has a shop 
that offers retail goods Such blank 
spots have brought thousands of 
keen business minds to the fore 
Last year vv'hen the Ministry of 
Internal Trade failed to put enough 
watches into Moscow’s shops, Com- 
rade M. Kogan and several cohorts 
wangled several thousand sets of 
watch movements from government 
factories, assembled them and sold 
them The Kogan crowd netted a 
million roubles (eejual to about 
^ 89,000) before the police woke u[) 
The vast intertwined network of 
state factories and shops, working 
under national production and mar- 
keting “plans,” can't manage to 
keep suppl) adjusted to dcm.ind 
The manager of a state chain of 
hardware shops, for example, can do 
veiy little about replenishing his 
stork if a sudden demand for screw- 
drivers empties his shelves He’s 
tied to an annual quota A request 
for doubled screwdriver production 
must go through red-tape govern- 
ment channels, often to the Krem- 
lin’s highest councils No shop man- 
ager can slash prices to meet a slump 
in demand without official approval 
Although the supply of goods 
and services has improved since the 
war, it’s still months before a chang- 
ed market si tuation 1 n R u ssia 1 s recog- 
nized and remedied Meanwhile, 
the public can sit and wait — or 
patronize a private “businessman ” 


Soviet citizens often find there are 
lush profits to be made even in sup- 
plying state agencies Leeches, for 
example, are still widely used for 
bloodletting in Russia (They were 
applied t(^ the dying Stalin himself.) 
One of the big suppliers of these 
worms to the Ministry of Health 
has been a co-operative run by two 
brotheis named Mamedov in the 
Caucasian city of Leninakan 
When the Ministry in Moscow 
contracted to pay the Mamedovs 
I 20 roubles per leech (about two 
shillings), it was assumed the brothers 
would have to pay most of that to 
the co-op’s emplovees who collected 
the leeches I^ut the Mamedovs 
hired labour at a cost of onlv 1/5 of 
a rouble a leech, pocketing the dif- 
ference Before the\ were caught, 
they were taking in private profits 
of more than 400,000 roubles a year 
on sales to the government 

Hundreds of such speculators are 
caught and punished monthly in 
the Soviet Union But for every 
speculator caught scores more go 
about their daily business Even 
in the world's tightest police state, 
the proht desire manages to poke 
through legal bans 

How, tor example, can the secret 
police prevent landloids from letting 
rooms at prices far above “con- 
trolled” maximum levels? A friend 
of mine in Moscow signed a lease 
for a room priced at 265 roubles a 
month But on top of that the land- 
lady demanded extra cash to boost 
the mtal rent 450 per cent. “I’d go 



E READEK^S DIGEST 


bankrupt if I charged only the 
official rent,” she said 
And how can the police prevent 
the buyer of a television set from 
reselling it to a “friend” for n hand- 
some profit^ Only ioo,(K)C) or so TV 
sets are at present coming on to the 
Russian market annually 1 here's 
demand for ten times that manv at 
the i,275-roul)le price fixed 

for the popular five-inch screen One 
Russian, who apparently made a 
business of such dealings, said he 
could get me a new television set 
for immediate delivcrv at a price of 
1, 800 roubles (/160), 525 roubles 
above the state price 
Not all private business in the 
U.S S R IS illegal Soviet law per- 
mits individuals to work privately 
under licence at anv of 20 trades 
and professions, including medicine, 
hair-drcssing, optometrv, bookbind- 
ing, house repairing Russians can 
work full time on such jobs Per- 
mits can be had also for part-time 
private work in other fields Hut on 
such lal)our the free-enterpnser finds 
hefty obstacles, tax rates on private 
income soar to 50 and 75 per cent, 
compared with the top per cent 
tax on state-derived earnings 
There’s often hot compeftion 
among these tradesmen and profes- 
sionals For some time, wealthy 
Moscow wives have been travelling 
all the way to Riga, in what once 
was Latvir to have dressc« made 
At last report Riga dressmakers, in 
a price war with their Moscow com- 
petitors, would turn out a well-styled 


street dress for 200 roubles, half the 
cost at the Soviet capital. 

It’s also not difficult to hire a 
state-employed carpenter who can 
find spare time to help build you a 
house or construct a piece of furni- 
ture Often these private operators 
can’t obtain the necessary materials 
for such jobs This has led to wide- 
spread thievery from state ware- 
houses and factories Not long ago a 
group of “businessmen” headed by 
a man named Kobenev was accused 
of having skimmed off ten per cent 
ot the total output of a group of 
factories in the Moscow area over a 
period of six months Hundreds of 
tons ot nails, lath, plaster and 
door-knobs were pumped into 
the Kobenev group’s private busi- 
ness empire 

There is also extensive private 
business in such professions as medi- 
cine, dentistry and teaching Be- 
cause the state-run free clinics are 
often congested or offer inferior 
service, families that can afford it 
frecjucntly arrange for the services 
of their own “private” doctor, a 
medico who works at an official job 
and takes private patients on the 
side This sort of “private practice ” 
can be lucrative. One of Russia’s 
most famous homoeopaths is said to 
earn 16,000 loublcs a month from 
the private practice he maintains in 
Moscow His income from official 
work wouldn’t approach that mark. 

You can get private help in prac- 
tically any service field in Moscow 
— if you can pay the price. 





Graham? 


Young Thunderer 
of Revival 


Condensed from Newsweek 


" VANGELisT Billy Graham 
* once described Washing- 
ton as “the most sinful 
city” m which he had ever preached 
By the time he finished his five- 
week “crusade” there two years 
ago, he had preached repentance to 
audiences totalling 500,000 in an 
area with 1,500,000 residents Re- 
cently the young thunderer from 
North Carolina has been drawing 
capacity crowds m London, the 
start of a four-month tour of Eng- 
land and the Continent which, he 
prays, will win countless new souls 
to jesus Christ At 35, he is the 
world’s No I revival preacher 
In 1949 Graham was almost un- 
known to the American public In 
the five years since, he has preached 
to some eight milhon people in 
gigantic rallies from coast to coast 
(a rally in Dallas's Cotton Bowl last 
June drew a record 75,000 people). 
Beyond this, his radio and television 


Unknown five years ago, he is 
now the world's No 1 evangelist 

audience adds up to some ten mil- 
lion regulars in the United States, 
Canada, Alaska, Panama, India, 
Africa, Formosa, Hawaii and areas 
reached by Radio Luxembourg and 
the Voice of America And his 
new'spaper column, “My Answer,” 
now appears in 73 papers reaching 
another 15 million 
Machine-Gun Gospel. Billy Graham 
differs vastly from other great rc- 
vivalistic evangelists who have 
sprung up about once a generation, 
though his message is much the 
same All men are sinners, he pro- 
claims, in breaking the Ten Com- 
mandments and not living up to the 
Sermon on the Mount. The only 
hope of salvation lies in accepting 
Christ as a personal Saviour. It is 
not enough to go to church once in 

53 




54 

a while. To put Christ’s teachings 
into practice in daily life, we must 
all start by being “born again” as 
individuals 

Graham’s machine-gun speed of 
delivery, his stabbing tort finger, his 
restless pacing of the platform (he 
has co\ercd as much «is a mile and 
a half during a sermon), his drama- 
tization of the old Bible stones have 
moved manv to compare him with 
the late Billy Sunday Sunday, how- 
ever, was notablv blunt-speaking m 
the pulpit, whereas Graham seldom 
savs an\ thing that can’t be found 
in the Bible And a majoritv of the 
7,600,000-member Southern Baptist 
Convention —of which he is an or- 
dained ministci — heaitilv approve 
of Ckaham’s w’ork 

Although he has been aeeused 
of over dramatizing religion, BilK 
Graham has never been as theatrical 
as the late Aimee Scinple McPher- 
son Sister Aimee might appear in 
football logs ciriving the ball of the 
Foursquare Gospel, or ride down 
the aisle of her Los Angele temple 
on a motor-eycle dressed as ^ traftie 
cop, leap off, thiow up a white 
gloved hand, blow a screech on her 
whistle and shout, “Stop* You’re 
speeding to Hell*’’ Or she might — 
and did — pass clothes lines dotted 
with clothcs-pegs down the row's for 
offerings (removing any possibilitv 
of getting pieces of silver) Both she 
and Billy Sunday were said to have 
made fortunes out of preaching the 
Gospel. 

Billy Graham never opens a “cru- 


May 

sadc” in any town unless he is in- 
vited by local ministers. They run 
the campaign, and collections arc 
taken up only to meet local ex- 
penses Then an audit prepared by 
a certified public accountant is pub- 
lished Graham and his evangelistic 
team get onlv hotel, food and trans- 
port from local crusadp coffers 
Billy draws a flat salarv of $15,000 
(about /^5.35o) per year which is 
donated to his cause b) interested 
businessmen 

Perhaps the greatest difference 
between Ciraharn and other revival- 
ists IS that he insists on an intensive 
follow-up programme 'Phose who 
come forvvird to be saved are in- 
vited backstage where the\ sign 
“Decision Ckirds” and talk over 
their problems with trained coun- 
se‘llors Bill\ estimates that some 
300,000 “decisions” have [)cen made 
in this way in the past five \ears 
About 5g pei cent are ahead v church 
members who want to reaffirm their 
faith I'he eithers are new converts. 
All cards are referred to local rn ni- 
sters, and the Billy CJraham Evange- 
listic Association, Incorporated, 
keeps a check on progress for as 
long as six months to a jeai 

Chaham has been attacked by 
both ultra-fund imenialists and lib- 
eral churchmen Some scoff at the 
fact that cowboy actor Roy Rogers* 
horse IViggcr sometimes appears at 
Graham’s matinees for . children. 
Others are amused at his homely 
benediction “May the Lord bless 
you real good ” 


Ithe readee^s digest 



>9^^ ' S^^'^GkAHAM: fOmC THUNDmER OF RBVtVAL 55 


In answer, he can point to such 
backing as that offered by the Rt. 
Rev. M. G. Henry, Protestant Epis- 
copal bishop of western North 
Carolina, who states that “Billy 
(Graham is doing a great work which 
I heartily support “ And after Gra- 
ham had concluded his Boston cru- 
sade in 1950, The Pilot, one of the 
most influential and conservative 
Roman Catholic papers in the 
USA, complimented him in an 
editorial titled “Bravo, Billy 
When non enthusiasts call him 
the “Barrymore of the Bible,” the 
“Gabriel in (labardine” or “Hill- 
billy Billy,” Graham likes to quote 
a stoiy about Billy Sunday When 
Sundav was told that his revival ef- 
forts didn’t last, he quipped, “Nei- 
ther docs a hath — but it does you 
good to take one ” 

But there arc tens of thousands 
who get a good deal more than a 
spiritual bath out of Billy Ciraham's 
sermons I’hey get an ama/ang up- 
lift, get eourage to carry on 
against human difliculties 
*‘Bored by Religion.” William 
Franklin Graham was born on a 
farm near Charlotte, North Caro- 
lina, of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian 
parents Although he went to church 
and Sunday school, he admits that 
he “was somewhat bored by relig- 
ion.” At 17 he was in the school 
baseball and basket-ball teams, but 
“I was getting a reckless attitude on 
life I liked to take a car and go as 
fast as I could and date as many 
girls as I could I had no objective 


or purpose in life.” When a revival 
came to town, Billy snickered at 
those who went But his parents 
urged him to attend He did — and 
went back almost every night for a 
month 

He became uncomfortable. “I 
was fighting the revival and 1 
couldn’t sleep Then one night I 
went up and sat with the people 
who were saved I was converted. 
There was that quiet resolve that I 
belonged to Christ Next morning 
when I went to school, even the 
leaves and the trees looked different 
It was a deep thing ” 

\ OLing t jfaham went to the Flor- 
ida Ihblc Institute to stud\ Theic 
he began to ftel a call to the min- 
istry lie spoke at the Tampa Rescue 
Mission on Saturdav nights, and on 
Sunday nights preached to gather- 
ings at the I’arnpa caravan site. 
Soon he joined the Southern Bap- 
tists, and in 1939 was ordained a 
minister I’he next yf'ar he entered 
Wheaton College, near Chicago, 
where he earned a B Sc in anthro- 
pology 

Not long after leaving college 
Billy became interested in Youth 
for Christ, a new organization set 
up to bring voung people to God. 
With a young trombonist named 
Clilf Barrows, he proceeded to criss- 
cross not only the United States 
but also Great Britain, promoting 
Youth for Christ. Barrows was 
his platform manager, a post he 
still holds today 

In 1948 Billy became president of 



5 ^ DIGEST 


North-western Schools, an evangel- 
ical college in Minneapolis, but 
spent much of his time meeting 
speaking engagements. It was in 
1949 that he hit the big time. 

Headline G>nversions. Billy was 
preaching at tent meetings in Los 
Angeles when the meetings began 
stretching on weeks longer than 
planned. Converts were making 
headlines Stuart Hamblen, a cow- 
boy singer who owned a string of 
race horses, announced his decision 
for Christ and prepared to sell his 
horses. Lou Zampcrini, Olympic 
running star and war hero, was 
publicly converted with his wife 

Now Graham began to make 
powerful friends in the cities he 
visited, as well as among members 
of Congress. Also he began build- 
ing up a vast organization known 
as the Billy Graham Evangelistic 
Association, Incorporated Today 
some 200 people work for this or- 
ganization, expend an annual bud- 
get of almost $2,000,000 (^700,000), 
most of It to put Graham’s Hour of 
Decision radio and television pro- 
grammes on the air and to produce 
Graham films. Part of it, of course, 
goes in salaries to members of the 
Graham team. 

Crusader at Work. During a cru- 
sade Graham is heavily protected 
from the public by his team (he took 
30 people with him to London). 
They help handle the 9,000-odd let- 
ters he normally receives per week, 
the hundreds of phone calls per day. 


In addition, for his Londem appear- 
ance 5,000 choristers and 1,000 
ushers were recruited, and 2,000 
“counsellors” were trained. 

He rises at 7.30 a.m. and, after 
brief prayer and breakfast, is ready 
for a gruclhng day of mail, inter- 
views and speeches. To keep his 12 
stone 12 pounds well distributed on 
his six-foot two-inch frame, he cats 
four or five times a day, and has a 
steak for at least one meal. During 
crusades, nevertheless, he loses about 
five pounds. 

He has to change his white shirt 
three times a day, and after he de- 
livers his 40-minute sermon in the 
evening rallies he must change from 
top to toe He preaches in a gabar- 
dine suit (the lightest weight avail- 
able), and wears out four a year. 
Billy used to dress more flashily — he 
went to see President Tiuman in 
a pistachio-grcen gabardine suit. 
Now, more mature, he has also 
given up loud ties and socks. 

Relaxing between campaigns with 
his wife and four children at his 
Montreal, North Carolina, home, 
Billy still works hard He often 
reads the Bible while listening to 
Scripture recordings (“I want to be 
saturated with the Bible. I want to 
know It all b) heart before I die.”) 
He has worn out ten Bibles thus 
far. 

“I’m not an intellectual or a theo- 
logian,” says Billy Graham with 
typical honesty. “It’s not me who 
draws the crowds. It’s God.” 



1 w\s JIVING in cl icaturcicss apart- 
mtnl building and didn’t know 
any ot my neighbours Determined to 
be a singer, I was putting almost all 
the money from my daytime )ob into 
singing lessons Lessons meant prac- 
tice — and I devoted every spare mo- 
ment to scales and songs 
One morning I met one of my 
neighbours on the stairs as I was dash- 
ing to work I was humming a song I 
had ]ust been working on She looked 
at me i moment, then asked hesitantly, 
“Arc you the girl who sings all the 
time?” 

! felt myself flush “I’m afraid I 
am,” I replied “I’m sorry ” And I 
fled 

A few evenings later I was turning 
over in my mind my desperate musi- 
cal ambition Was I foolish to con- 
tinue Almost panicky, I grabbed at 
a piece of music It was Albert Hay 
Malottc’s beautiful netting of Th^ 
Lord's Prayer My courage returned 
Jubilantly I stood in the middle ot the 
room and sang it with a full heart I 
must have sung it five or six times. 


Several days later I heard a rustic at 
iiiy door, .?nd turned to sec a note 
being slipped under it It read “Dear 
Neighbour U ever you feel discour- 
aged, perhaps this will hearten you 
Things have Ixrcn going badly for me 
— so badly I didn’t want to live any 
longer When I’d hear you practising 
I’d snap out of it a little, because you 
sounded as though you had something 
to live for Finally the other night I 
decided to end my life I went into the 
kitchen and turned on the gas. Then 
I heard you singing It was TheLord'i,, 
Prayer Suddenly I realized what I was 
doing I turned off the gas, opened the 
windows and drank in the fresh air. 
You sang that song several times Well 
—you saved my life You gave me the 
courage to make a decision I should 
have made long ago Now life is ail I 
could hope it to be Thanks always.** 
— Mary Coburn 

“T JAVE lou ever lost a mother?** I 

XX asked the young obstetrician for 
whom I had ]ust typed some reports. 

“I’ve been lucky,” he answered. 
“Never had a death ’* 


57 



“Ha\e you c\er lost a father?” 

“In niy case that isn’t as funny as it 
sounds,” he replied. “Recently I deliv- 
ered a \ery young mother, whose hus- 
band had iK\cr seen a ncuborn baby 
The child was healthy, but it looked 
like all ncwboin babies -reddaetd and 
flat-hcailcd, plain Through the win 
dow ot the nurseiy, I pointed out the 
baby to his lather 

“ ‘That he Naul ‘Is that mine 
“ ‘Yes,’ I respoiuled cheerlullv 
‘That’s ^our son 

“Without warniim, he tell back 
wards m a dtatl tauit, hitting his head 
on the cement llooi so h ird th it he 
fractured his skull I liad <|uite i job 
explaining his wile whit Iuk* h ip- 
enecl * Alter she and the bib^ went 
ome she made stseial retiiin msTs 
to her busbani* in his hos[)ii d bed ’ 

L ikt M\N^ .mother child te.itcd in 
i Arncri^. Ts I)ct[) South i 1 iiu^ 
teeming with cousins ot all dc^Mis 
my sister learned il.ti one tould irlord 
to be heart) with lust cousins less s(* 
with second .ousins, and so on to the 
formal tnngcol the tribal eircK 
She had long agf' lorgotteti (his 
social (odc when, r(e(*ntl\ she went to 
a gaidcn party in Alabima "Iheie a 
charming middle-aged woman op- 
peared to be tr)mgio catch mv sl^le^’s 
eye She nodded grieiousl\ -but made 
no effort to come over and spt ik I ater, 
however, she advanced ».liffidenil) 
“My dear,” she afudogized, “I’m 
afraid I would never have come over 
if It hadn’t been for our hostess It 
was only after she told me more 
about you that I reali/cd you were 
a speakjng cousin of mine ” 

H R Will I AM K 



“loin couples bii'ded logethei ind 
renud ic(*unli\ housi joi two months 
1 aeh loupli speiii two weeks thcie, 
t iking c lie ol all i ^ childie n ' 

‘lleivcnsf exclaimed m) wile “1 
'vouKln t till taking cue f)i chil 
dreii i ‘liolid i\ though it would be 
vvoiidet till lor iIk i liildu n 

“( )li, the lvv(< 'veeks weie hell The 
‘lu)lidi\' w is the SI' weeks at home 
wulinlll lilt kuls (, if HiWK.AK 

L TMin».Ki\r, the b.-b) seat treun the 
' Ironi seif i»l v)ur cu, I sipped 
the hooks over my shoulders M/ wife 
f)op})ed the b.ib) m, and we strolled at 
case ihiirngh New \ork’s i^ronx Zoo 
1 his was appaiently a new use for 
a bub)’s hook on se it, tor New York- 
ers pomtt<l us (iui to each other and 
smiled We had arrived from Eng- 
land, and were still being impressed 
by g.uJgets and labour saving devices 
Now wc seeimd to have stiack on a 
new idea 

Or so wt thought, until we met a 
lad who in a deep redskin voice in- 
loneti “Howf” Wilham R Eraser 


A Case for Psi 


By Aldotis Huxley 


u /r 

['1 /j Rs A woke up one morning 
duriniT World War II — the 
Iv i njorning of November i8 — 
sobbing, “Jack is dead jack was 
her son, a soldic i Fi\ e dav s latci %he 
again woke upcrving, again insisted 
that tht bo\ was dead A few hours 
later a telegram came reporting 
Jack's death on November 17 

An Englishwoman, Mrs Atlay, 
wife of the then Bishop of Here- 
ford, dreamed that after the family 
morning prn\ers she went into the 
dining-room and saw an enormous 
pig near the sideboard She told the 
dream, before prayers, to her chil- 
dren and their governess After 
prayers she opened the dining-room 
door and there was a pig exactlv 

Aldois Hi\ii.y. out of tht most distin- 
guished literary hgurcs ot our time, bt longs 
to a famous stientifir famil) His grand- 
father, Thomas Huxkv, was an early evolu- 
tionary theorist, his brother is Julian Huxley, 
the biologist Novelist, essayist and bio- 
grapher, Aldous Huxley is noted tor his pro- 
vocative use of scientific and philosophic ideas 
in such novels as Point Counter Point and 
Biave New World 


A distinguished writer assembles 
evidence that there is some- 
thing operative in man that 
tranuends the law^ of matter* 

where she h.iel dreamed it was It 
had escaped from its sty during the 
pravers 

The first of these anecdotes is 
cited in the fournal of Parapsychol- 
ogy (published by Duke University, 
North Carolina), the second is told 
in the Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research (London). Both 
have been vouched for by reliable 
witnesses, and there seems to be no 
good reason for douDting that they 
actually occurred How are they to 
be explained^ 

One answer, of course, is pure 
“coincidence ” But coincidences like 
these are only moderately plausible. 
The alternative answer is more 
plausible but more disturbing when 
the mother said that Jack was dead, 
she really \new he was. The bishop’s 
wife actually saw, in her mind’s eye, 

59 


Condensed from Lift 



6o 


THIS READER*S DIGEST 


what was going to happen the fol- 
lowing morning 

This lattei hypothesis assumes 
that human beings are endowed, at 
least potentially, with a paranormal 
(beyond normal) facultv Research 
workers haye given this the blanket 
name of “psi ” They have shown 
that it can manifest itself as telepa- 
thy, an awareness of events taking 
place in other people’s minds, as 
clairvovance, an awareness, with no 
help from sense impressions, of 
events taking place in the outside 
world, and as foreknowledge, an 
awareness of future events These 
are the three types of what is called 
extrasensor\ perception, or ESP 

But psi IS not exclusive Iv a form 
of knowing There is some evidence 
that It IS also a form of doing Dr 
J. A Hadficld, an English psvchia- 
tnst, hvpnotized a sailor. Leading 
Seaman H P , and told him that his 
arm was being seared with a red-hot 
iron and that a blister would form 
at the point of contact Actually Dr 
Hadfield merclv touched H P with 
his finger and bandaged the arm 
When the bandage was removed six 
hours later, a small blister had 
formed By the next day. Dr Had- 
ficld said, “there wms a large Cjuan 
tity of fluid, giving the exact ap 
pearance of a blister pnxluccd b\ 
heat ” The body had acted — with 
no physical reason for it to act 

Peiliaps the world’s most distin- 
guished parapsychologist is Dr 
}. B. Rhine of Duke University, 
who has been investigating psi 


Ma^ 

for 25 years. His latest book is 
called New World of the Mmd 
This new world, he points out, is 
new only to modern science. Pro- 
phets, oracles, ghosts and second 
sight were accepted realities as far 
back as tbc Bronze Age. It wasn’t 
until the earl\ i8th century that 
educated people began to doubt 
their existence F'or decades there- 
after, “spiritual” phenomena w^ere 
the special reserve of a fringe com- 
monlv regarded as lunatic 

Then in 1882 a group of eminent 
English academicians founded the 
Socict\ for Ps\chical Research Its 
fotonal, now in its 72nd \ear of 
publication, contains records of a 
prodigious cjuantitv of careful work 
in the field The early investigators 
collected a great mass of anecdotal 
material and published as much of 
It as could stand up to a se.irching 
examination furit s arc prepared, m 
good conscience, to send men to the 
gallows on less convincing evidence 

A second phase in the history of 
psi rese.irch began in T930 with the 
foundation of the parapsychology 
laboratory .it Duke Uniyersity under 
Dr Rhine He and his co-workers 
first developed fully controlled c\- 
periment.il conditions and subjected 
all results to statistical apjpraisal 
Their work has established the case 
for psi on a basis too solid to be 
explained away 

To test ESP, they inyented a pack 
of 25 cards containing fiye kinds of 
cards, each with a simple symbol: 
circle, square, star, cross and waves. 



A CASIS tUK rsi 


tt h 


^S4 

A subject IS asked to guess — purely 
by extrasensory perception — the 
order of the cards as the experi- 
menter turns them up The subject 
IS separated from the experimenter 
by an opaque screen, or sits in an- 
other room, perhaps even in a dis- 
tant building 

Normall} \our chance ol: guess- 
ing correctlv the older of the cards 
in Dr Rhine’s pack is one in five 
In anv short run vou may do better 
or worse and it will not signifv 
much liut if, over a long senes of 
runs, the stoic deviates markedly 
and consistently from the normal 
average, the deviation is called “sig- 
nificant,” another wa\ of saying that 
It was probably not due to chance 
alone but to some other factor In 
scientific experiments, odds of a few 
thousand to one arc regarded as 
equivalent prejof that some other 
factor than chance has been present 

In one card experiment carried 
out m London by a mathematician. 
Dr G Soal, the subject, Mr Basil 
Shackleton, was remarkablv gifted 
In more than ii,ooo trials, he scored 
so high that the odds against the 
results being due to chance alone 
were about one to 100,000,000,000,- 
000, 000,000, cK)o,c)(u), 000, 000,000 

The first reports of the Duke ex 
periments made their appearance in 
the ’30s Orthodox psychologists im- 
mediately questioned the soundness 
of the statistical methods used This 
matter was cleared up in 1937 at the 
annual meeting of the American 
Institute of Mathematical Statisti- 


cians, which reached these conclu- 
sions “Recent mathematical work 
has established the fact that, assum- 
ing the experiments have been 
properly performed, the statistical 
analysis is essentially valid. If the 
Rhine investigation is to be fairly 
attacked, it must be on other than 
statistical grounds ” 

Celtics took the hint and pro- 
ceeded to attack on other grounds 
— the experimental setup This point 
was cleared up in 1938, at the 
annual meeting of the American 
Psychological Association The ex- 
perimenters gave an account of how 
they conducted their experiments, 
and even th(‘ most hostile critics had 
to admit that their p»'ecautions were 
sati sf actor > 

Psi is intrinsically no more inex- 
plicable than perception or memory; 
it is merely less common We do not 
have the faintest idea how certain 
chemical and electrical events in the 
brain make us aware of a rose as be- 
ing pink and perfumed Nor do we 
know how a mind recalls events 
from the past 

How can events in a mind foretell 
the fall of a card^^ We cannot say. 
But can we sav how events in the 
mind can raise a blister on the arm 
of a hypnotized sailor^ Can we say 
what hypnotism is^ The mental 
state ot a hypnotized person is very 
different from that of the same per- 
son unhypnotizcd. As far as the 
brain’s activity can be measured by 
an encephalogram, the states arc 
just about the same. Does this 



62 


THE fUSHDER'S DIGEST 


,' 1 ’/ f' 


“make sense” ^ Not much more 
than anything else in the fascinating 
and bcwildcnng field ot our human 
nature To refuse to accept psi be- 
cause It does not conform to a hypo- 
thesis which IS admitted 1\ incapable 
of explaining the facts even of our 
cvervdav experience seems, to sav 
the least of it, a little captious 
Perhaps William James was on 
the right track when he suggested 
that we li\e immersed in “a con 
tinuum of cosmic consciousness,” a 
World Mind, a little of which filters 
into e\cr\ particular brain and is 
experienced b\ the ovyner of that 
brain as his private mind, or con 
sciousness Another philosopher, 
Henri Bergson, went a little farther 
Mind in itself, he said, is aware ot 
everything, everv where, without re 
gard to space oi time, but the func- 
tion of our bran's is to shut out most 
of this (to us, irrelevant) knowledge, 
in the interests of biological ellici 
enc\ On this hvpothesis, psi would 
represent a leakage intc^ personal 
consciousness of some of the mental 
material which the lirain normalK 
excludes 

Evidence .imassed to d.jtc tibout 
psi points to the tollowing eopclu- 
sions Some' people can become 
dircctlv aware of events taking 
place in other people’s minds Some 
people can become aware of events 
taking place remotely from them 
Some people can become aware of 
events, either mental cjr physical, 
which have not yet taken place 
Some people can influence the be- 


haviour of matter w'lth which they 
are not in contact 

The most urgent task confronting 
the psi researcher is to discover some 
way of bringing psi into conscious- 
ness and controlling it We already 
know that certain mental attitudes 
and personality traits militate 
ag.unst high scoring in Dr Rhine’s 
experiments Boredom and monot- 
on v arc as bad for psi as for every 
other kind of work Scoring rates 
lend to fall olT towards the end of 
every long senes of calls Similai de- 
clines appeir in tests for learning 
and memory The regul.irity with 
which they appear in the records of 
[)si testing is another powcrtiil preiof 
that the results are due to psyche)- 
logical causes 

Anc'ther prf)blcm presenting itself 
to ps! researchers is that of human 
suivival aficr death it all mental 
cycnis depend completely on physi- 
cal events, survival is out of the 
c]uestion But it some mental events 
do not depend completely on physi- 
cal events, survival certainly be- 
comes a possibility 

In New World of the M:nd Dr 
Rhine lias some interesting chapters 
on thcsignifiLance of psi for religion 
Psi research, he points out, has led 
”by the' application of strict scienti- 
fic me thod' to the conclusum “there 
IS something operative in man that 
transcends the laws of matter 
The universe differs, therefore, from 
what the prevailing materialistic con- 
cept indicates It is a universe about 
which It IS possible to be religious.” 



In place of the logging camp, the tree farmer and the forest factory; 



Looking Forward in the Bachvoods 

Condensed from Fortune 


i VowN Zellerbach, a large U S. 

paper producer and forest-pro- 
{f ducts company, may eventually 
be able to utilize every part of its 
tree^ except the leaf rustle. 

The company owns, controls or 
has a substantial interest in huge 
Pacific Coast forest areas which total 
about 20 thousand million board 
feet, in an area of 2,200 square miles 
Because CZ’s future depends on this 
vast forest reserve, it has laid out a 
carefully planned forest-manage- 
ment programme “Trees For ever” 
IS CZ’s operating and planning 
slogan. 

As early as 1889 napermaking 
unit now embraced in CZ re- 
stocked with seedlings some cotton- 


wood islands in Oregon after strip- 
ping them Forty 'five vears later 
CZ harvested the crop, restocked 
and again turned elsewhere while 
another crop grew on the islands. 
Today CZ is a leader in the U.S. 
tree-farm movement Since 1945, 
using hand labour, seed guns, planes 
and helicopters, CZ has put seedling 
trees or seeds into about 32,000 acres 
of logged or burned lands to supple- 
ment natural seeding 
Tree farming means more than 
)ust planting and waiting It means 
gathering cones, drying them and 
extracting the seed, cold-storing, 
raising seedlings to plant, scattering 
seed from the air. It also means 
aerial baiting ot seeded lands against 





15 ^ tHE i^At>Em DIGEST Hay 


rodents that eat seeds» and dusting 
against insects and diseases. It means 
fighting fires with elaborate equip- 
ment : look-out towers, two-way 
radios, fog machines, portable 
pumps that draw from company- 
maintained reservoirs. This indus- 
trial forestry involves controlling 
soil desiccation, upgrading seed-bed 
conditions and seed-tree spacing, 
and otherwise intensifying tree cul- 
ture. 

The industrial tree farmei em- 
ploys selective cutting A forest of 
a 6o-ycar-growth-cycle species will, 
in early decades, comprise many 
more trees than could ever reach 
full growth if none were lemoved 
The tree farmer thins the forest 
after two or three decades, using the 
thinnings industrially and leaving 
the optimum number of trees with 
increased vigour. Another technique 
is to leave behind blocks of trees 
that will re-seed cut-over areas 

In an effort to fit the small wood- 
lot owner for such progressive prac- 
tices, CZ has, since 1945, given 
away more than a million trees, 
largely to small landowners for 
planting on lands adjacent to CZ 
properties Some day CZ will want 
to buy thinnings and eventually 
mature trees from the small forest 
farmer. 

The development of this complex 
programme required a revolution 
in forest equipment and techniques. 
The cry of '"Timber^' is still heard, 
but trees are felled in the American 
North-west nowadays by power- 


driven chain saws instead of by 
hand cross-cuts. With huge tongs 
mounted on a Caterpillar and pow- 
ered by air (a CZ idea), the felled 
tree is loaded on to a truck trailer 

Long hauls of logs are still made 
by river rafting, at the nverbank 
overhead cranes pick up logs bound 
in “asparagus” bundles by steel 
bands crimped by an automatic 
gadget This makes it possible to 
construct outsize rafts, including 
logs smaller than were formerly 
economical, and to prevent losses of 
heavy “sinkers” by loading them 
jointly with floaters 

Modern techniques have reached 
into the mills as well as the forests 

Not so long ago even the most 
efficient lumber mills burned enor- 
mous amounts of waste — slabs, saw- 
dust and saw kerf — in refuse burn- 
ers Today pulp mills convert these 
slabs into wood chips for the manu- 
facture of pulp, und both lumber 
and pulp mills burn most of the re- 
maining waste as fuel for the gen 
eration of steam 

Another dramatic way of saving 
wood is the elimination of mechani- 
cal means of remosing bark Now 
even the largest logs can be de- 
barked by a high-pressured olast of 
water Off comes all the bark and 
none of the wood Then, instead of 
being cut into short lengths, the 
entire log (up to 42 inches m diame- 
ter) is thrown into a machine whose 
power-driven knives quickly reduce 
It to chips suitable for cooking into 
pulp. In some pulp mills the result- 



LOOKING FORWARD tN THE BACKWOODS ' < 1 ;^ , 


ing saving amounts to 15 per cent. 
At one CZ mill this comes to the 
equivalent of 600 acres of timber 
annually. 

Inside the newer mills, no peavey 
(the long pole-like tool of the log- 
ger) IS to be seen Elk Falls news- 
print mill on Vancouver Island is 
the newest of all Two men do all 
Its wood-mill operations — handling, 
debarking, sawing — by push button 
The paper machine is designed to 


produce 100,000 tons of newsprint 
annually and has thus far achieved 
an 83,000-ton rate. 

The aim of CZ is such manage- 
ment that the commercial forest will 
annually add growth equivalent to 
what IS taken away This end — 
called sustained yield — has not been 
achieved , but the increasing practice 
of tree farming by Crown Zeller- 
bach and other leading industrial 
foresters brings it constantly nearer. 


LESSON FROM THE MOON 

By Vicki Baum 

Author of Grand Hotel,'" The Mustard Seed 

When the moon t\ fullest tt begins to wane^ 

When it IS dat kfst it begins to grow 

'-Chinese Proveib 

^HtRt IS a calm wisdom in this old saying that impressed me when I 
heard it first from a monk of a Buddhist monastery in China It has often 
helped me to retain a good measure of equanimity under stress and hard- 
ship as well as when some unexpected success or good luck might have 
made me too exuberant There is hope and consolation in th»“ sure knowl- 
cd L that even the darkest hours of pains and troubles won’t last, but also 
a warning against overrating the passing glories of wealth, power and 
great good fortune A warning and a hope not only for the individual but 
for governments, nations and their leaders, a brief summing up of all 
that history and human experience can tell us And beyond all that we 
might hear in it an echo of the law' and order that holds our universe in 
sale balance This Week 


1 DEAD 

2 LIT 

3 FICTION 

4 SAVE 

5 PART 


Answers to Kangaroo Wotd^'’ 


(See page 22) 

6 TOMB II ROUND 

7 SATED 12 SEE 

8. IS 13 REVOLT 

9. LIE 14 MART 

10. APT 15 FACL 


16 DEBATE 
17. PANTS 

18 RAIN 

19 SUPERIOR 

20 HOTEL 




I N THE OLD League of Nations I 
had the privilege of sitting on a 
committee with H A Lorentz, the 
great physicist, and his even more 
noted disciple, Albert Einstein 
The day came when a shrinking 
budget forced a rcMdjustment in 
salaries Since we agreed that the 
cuts should be proportional to the 
reduction in funds, it was a problem 
m simple arithmetic 
Einstein and Lorentz began sepa- 
rately to work out the new figures 
Perhaps one used trigonometry and 
the othei differential calculus But 
the two scientists produced results 
that were not only completely dif- 
ferent but totally absurd 
Lorentz his brows furrowed, 
stared fixedly at Einstein, who regis- 
tered complete *imazement Finally 
both broke into loud, helpless laugh- 
ter. The conflict was solved by 
bringing in an accountant, for 
whom the problems of ratio and 
proportion were child’s play. 

— ^Julio Casares, of the Royal Academy Madrid 

A FL^END lamented to John D 
Rockefeller that he had not been 
able to collect a $50,000 loan made 
to a business acquaintance. 

66 


“Why don’t you sue him asked 
Rockefeller. 

“I neglected to have him ack- 
nowledge the loan in writing.” 

“Well,” said the oil magnate, 
“just drop him a letter demanding 
the $100,000 he owes you ” 

“But he owes me only $50,000 ” 

“Precisely,” said Rockefeller “He 
will let you know that by return 
post- -and \ou will ha\e vour ack- 
nowledgment” - r F EdKM 

Artur Schnabei , the pianist, used 
to take a firm stand against phving 
encores after a concert appearance 
But the slubliorn applause of one 
audience recalled him time after 
time Finally Schnabel surrendered 
He seated himself at the keyboard — 
and plaved a sonata that lasted 45 
minutes Chicago Oai/\ Tribune 

Irmnc, Beri in, an expert insom- 
niac who claims he hasn’t slept well 
for ^2 years, was holidaving in 
Bermuda One morning a tricnd, 
noticing that the composer looked 
c\en more fineh drawn than usual, 
asked if hegot anv sleep at all “Yes, 
I slept,” Berlin said bitterl\, “but I 
di earned that I didn’t ” - w.iittr Ross 

Nobody knew why, but for years 
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne 
had lost money in Pittsburgh It ex- 
asperated Lunt, and the night be- 
fore they were to open in The 
Taming of the Shrew he took Larry 
Farrell, their manager, aside. 
“Larry, I don’t mean to be critical,” 



he began, “but I think the reason “It’s very simple,’’ said Holmes.^ 
we don’t make a profit here is the “If I sit down I write a long opinion 
company isn’t managed properly.” and don’t come to the point as 
“Would you like to take over quickly as I could. If I stand up, I 
while we are here'*” asked Farrell, write as long as my knees hold out 
The actor agreed and Farrell handed When my knees give out, I know 
him the books. On Saturday night it’s time to stop ” — Coroiwi 

when they closed, Lunt was brim- 
ming with good news “We made One Saturday U.S Under-Secre- 
$4,000,” he told the manager tary of State Walter Bedell Smith 
proudly “Here are the books. decided to come into the office and 

The manager glanced over the catch up on his clerical work. “I 
ledger “One thing, Alfred,” he got m at nine o’clock,” he said, 
pointed out “You forgot to pay the “feeling self-righteous for being on 
Lunts ’ —Jean Meegan the job SO early on my day off The 

phone rang and it was President 
U S Supreme Court Justice Eisenhower ‘Beetle,’ he asked me, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote his yoy right'’ I’ve been trying 

opinions standing beside a special to get you since 8 15 When you 
high desk “Mr. Justice, why do you t^eren’t at work, I decided that 
write your opinions standing up?” you niust be ill ’” 
a new secretary asked — The Saturday Evening Poti 

Pun Fun 

One of the contestants on Groucho Marx’s radio quiz show was 
a young man named Lee “One of the Virginia Lees?” asked 
Groucho 

“No, I’m from England,” said the contestant 

“Oh,” said Groucho, “one of the lend Lees ” -^nbc-tv 

In a Minnesota State Legislature debate on the merits of front or 
rear car licence plates, a senator argued that the rear plate was more 
help to pursuing police, clinched his point with “After all, most 
pinches are made from the rear ” 

Eugene Manlove Rhodes, the famous western novelist, used to 
recall with affection a certain New Mexico cowman “Not only was 
Jones a man-to-take-along,” Rhodes told us, “but he knew a little 
Latin Once he took his steer sales money and went off for a spree 
in Denver. Two full weeks passed without any word Then came 
the message : “ ‘ Hic hock . . hike ” 

— Contributed by Eugene Cunningham 



An old schoolteacher told him the greatest thing m life . . . 


Keep On Growing! 

B\> Donald Cuhoss Peattic 

S HE was tin\ and wise and brave, she had lived many \ears 
and taught many children besides me A grown man, I 
could still learn from her For, as casually as an old tree 
dropping fruit, she had said on m) last \’sit, i sometimes think, 
Donald, that the greatest thing in life is the power to grow ” 

With e\er\ vear of m\ own, 1 have come to agree with her more 
If in the complex processes of nature there is any direction, any law 
resembling a command from above, it is growth 1 heat people 
speaking of this or that happening as being “(jod’s will ” For 
mystlf, I lay no claim to any such knowledge, save that it seems 
plain that the Divinity which endowed its crc.itures with life in- 
tended them to grow — seed and egg, blossom and tree and beast 
and humankind 

Yet how many men and women stop short * They grow older, 
yes But long ago they ceased any inner development They nave 


put forth no fresh green ideas for years, they have flowered in no 
new interests or understanding They are, spiritually, dead wcjod 
For growth, inner growth in a human being, is a matter of 
striving By our own will wc must push up through the hard crust 
of accustomed ideas, and reach out into the light of greater wisdom 
— a sunlight in which even the aged may flourish verdantl) to the 
cud The power lies within us It is a miraculous power, that makes 
earth green and children fair with promise, and gives to mankind 
Its greatest hope May it stir in you and me to our very roots ^ 

Condensed from This Week 








Haxvaii\s liuhjatigabk Land Maker 


Kv Frank 

nt \nTHiCAL goddess of fire who 
unleashed the volcanoes that 
rt.irtd the eight Hawaiian Is- 
lands out of the sea has onh one 
rival He is tall, tanned Walter 
Dillingham, a convivial septuage- 
narian whom Islanders call “Uncle 
Walter ” In the past half century he 
has probably eieatcd more new and 
indispensable land than any othei 
person in the world I le has wrested 
It from useless salt marshes, swamps 
and coral reefs 

Today nearly a third of Honolulu, 
a slim fringe of a citv squeezed be- 
tween steep mountains and the 
ocean, is built on manufictured 
land Most of the modern factories 
which have transformed the cit\ 
from a sleepy tropical capital into a 
bustling commercial metropolis are 


) Taylor 

on land Dillingham made So are 
half th( rcLnation grounds and a 
fouith of the houses By salvaging 
low coastal land Dillingham has 
also saved priceless plantation land 
for sLigai and pineapple production. 

Only five )ears ago Wailupe, a 
new Honolulu suburl), was the stag- 
nant remnant of a ro\aI fishpond, 
laboriouslv built under orders of an 
earlv ruler whose subjects had 
dragged huge boulders down from 
the mountains !o wall off sizeable 
areas of shallow sea Fishermen kept 
their catches in these salt-water lock- 
ers Years ago Uncle Walter began 
buvmg up the neglected ponds 

“When our dredgers aren’t busy 
on bigger jobs we’ll fill them in, 
he said By 1951, 200 houses had 
been built on the 44-acre tract. 


69 




Tfm KSAOmS DIGEST 


Thirty years ago famous Waikiki 
Beach was a narrow crescent-shaped 
sandspit fringed by coconut palms 
and isolated by a 1,000-acre swamp. 
In the swamp, Chinese squatters 
lived in shacks, kept ducks and 
farmed rice paddies During heavy 
rains flood waters poured over the 
sandspit, leaving the beach strewn 
with ill-smclling refuse The whole 
area was a civic headache Dilling- 
ham persuaded the authorities to let 
him cut a drainage channel to the 
sea. The Ala Wai Waterway, 250 
feet wide and two miles long, is 
now one of the citv’s most popular 
recreation areas Mud from the ex- 
cavation transformed the swamp 
land into valuable residential prop- 
erty and public parks A third of 
Honolulu’s population now lives in 
this suburb Most important, the 
cleaned-up beach at Waikiki has be- 
come a travel lure that attracts some 
40 million tourist dollars a vear and 
provides jobs for thousands 
Walter Francis Dillingham was 
born in Hawaii, April 5, 1875, when 
Hawaii was still a Polynesian king- 
dom. His father had come to the 
Islands from Boston as a teen-age 
sailor He returned later as the 
20-year-old skipper of . small 
schooner. Deciding to settle in the 
Islands, he bought a shop on a shoe- 
string and built it into a leading 
ironmongery. Then he launched the 
Oahu Railway on a hunch and a 
slimmer shoestring. Before long, 
the railway was doing a bustling 
business hauling freight to and 


from the fast-growing plantations. 

A major bottleneck was the trans- 
fer of cargoes between the trains 
and steamers, so Dillingham senior 
decided to build deep-water docks. 
He bought a newly invented hy- 
draulic dredger in California and 
the manufacturers sent Captain 
John Parker of San Francisco to as- 
semble It About then the elder Dil- 
lingham’s health broke, and young 
Walter hustled home from Harvard 
Unnersity to take over 
Parker finished dredging the 
channel and filled the land the rail- 
wa\ needed for goods-yards Then 
he proposed that he and young Dil- 
lingham go into the business 
With borrowed c.ipital of $5,000, 
Walter organized the Hawaiian 
Dredging Company with Captain 
Parker and Bob Atkinson, a Har- 
vard friend In 190^, a year later, the 
U S Navy decided to cut a channel 
208 feet wide through the coral reef 
blocking the entrance to Pearl Har- 
bour, and to develop Pearl as a 
major Pacific base An American 
mainland dredging company landed 
the contract but brought out the 
wrong kind of equipment Friendly 
Walter Dillingham tried to help 
them out They gave up after a 
year, but recommended Walter to 
finish the job He did 

Fift\ years of re-doing geography, 
not only in Hawaii but in a dozen 
other Pacific islands, followed. Dil- 
lingham’s dredgers added 5,000 
acres of new land to the Honolulu 
waterfront and shaped the harbour 



into a notably commodious port. 
When his men devised a monstrous 
new cutting tool, modelled on a 
Japanese toy, they blasted out the 
coral shoulders and made Pearl 
Harbour a spacious Navy base. 

Hawaiian Dredging had been 
getting the tough, risky projects, 
while big mainland competitors had 
moved in to snatch easy mud-mov- 
ing jobs with low bids. The next 
time a simple mud-sucking contract 
came up, Dillingham was ready He 
underbid a mainland rival by five 
cents a cubic yard, and then sold the 
mud for five cents a cubic yard to 
fill in tidclands 

When Jim Dole, founde* of the 
pineapple industry, could find no 
site for a cannery near Honolulu, 
Dillingham said, “I’ll make one for 
you ” Shortly, when he landed a job 
deepening Honolulu Haibour, he 
filled m a swamp at the same time 
Hence, the pineapple industry — 
Hawaii’s second largest source of 
income — had not only cannery sites 
but wharves for unloading barges of 
fruit from other islands 

On another earth-moving job 
Uncle Walter converted a vast area 
of swamp land into magnificent 
sites for other new heavy industries 
Again, when the growing Island 
fishing fleet needed a port, Dilling- 
ham dredged one at Kawelo Basin, 
now the home of a thriving tunny- 
fish'packing industry 

About this time Captain Parker, 
concluding that Hawaii was just 
about dredged out, sold his interest 


to his two partners. Dillingham andifj 
Atkinson believed they were just* 
getting started They were right. In 
the years that followed they scooped 
harbours for ocean-going vessels on 
the neighbouring islands of Maui, 
Hawaii, Kauai and Lanai, and still 
bigger jobs awaited them on Oahu, 
where Honoluluans needed more 
and more land 

The reclamation achievement that 
delights Uncle Walter most is Ala 
Moana Park, a mile-long beach and 
playground stretching from Hono- 
lulu Harbour to Waikiki. When he 
first proposed the project, a howl 
rose from property owners who pro- 
tested against “the waste of tax- 
payers’ money ’’ But Dillingham 
eventually won over the legislators. 
“All I want to do,’’ he told them, 
“is to turn that smelly tide flat into 
the finest beach and park in the city 
for workers’ families ’’ The poli- 
ticians understood that kind of talk. 
Soon the people of Honolulu had 
their park The dredgers also filled 
in the lowlands behind the park, 
creating land for a spacious shop- 
ping area and for ultra-modern 
office buildings, a boon to business 
firms formerly crowded in the 
Honolulu business district. 

Land-making has been as impor- 
tant to the armed forces as to the 
people of Hawaii When flying 
boats first conquered the Pacific, the 
U.S Navy got Dillingham to 
dredge three huge seaplane runways 
north of Honolulu. The sucked-up 
coral created Rodgers Field, which 



7 ^ 


fHE READER'S DIGEST 


later became Honolulu Interna- 
tional Airport In both World War 
II and the Korean War this has 
served as the hub of airlifts to and 
from Asia 

On the opposite side of Oahu, 
the Navy decided — before fapan 
attacked Pearl Harbour — to build 
tho largest air base m the Pacific 
A hurried call went out for Dilling- 
ham dredgers to clear the coral out 
of spacious Kaneohe Ra\ and cut 
a channel through the reef so that 
supply vessels could get in The 
Kaneohe project emerged as a 
combination seaplane and land- 
plane base with vast runwas s pushed 
far out into the shallow sea 

Before this naval an base was 
finished U S militarv leaders de- 
cided to dot the Pacihc with simihr 
bases This called for constiuction 
on so \ast a scale that Dillingham 
needed partners With two main- 
land construction companies, later 
augmented b\ two others, he joined 
in organizing CPNAB (Contractors 
Pacific Naval Air Bases) 

On Johnston Island, Midway, 
Wake, Kwajalcin, Guam — wher- 
ever the American military needed 
channels and airstrips — Dillingham 
dredgers moved in On Wake Is- 


land an entire construction crew of 
800 men was lost when the Japanese 
captured the atoll 

Dillingham is one of the most 
potent personalities in the Islands 
Scarcclv any civic movement is 
launched m Honolulu without his 
leading it On one piece of reclaimed 
land he built a large office building 
and used its earnings to endow a 
hospital for children Punahou 
School, in which his mother taught 
and where he trained for college, 
has become another of his philan- 
thropies Athletic and sports-losing, 
he played polo with his sons until 
he was bo 

He has a magnificent house in 
Honolulu Tn shaip contrast, on the 
ranch where he week-ends and 
raises thoroughbred polo ponies he 
has built a replica of the plain New 
England t\pe of house in which he 
was born, every detail faithful even 
to the cjuilts on the beds 

But the achievement of which he 
is most proud is making land At 
y(\ Hawaii’s courtlv and persuasive 
Uncle Walter is still driving his 
dredgers to add still more housjug- 
sitcs for fast-growing Honolulu, 
and industrial and military land to 
his beloved Islands 



Coloured Language 

Travellfrs \mono the Gullah Negroes of the coastal country of South 
Carolina arc often impressed by the imaginative quality of their speech 
“Doan short -patience me,” they say, meaning, “Don’t make me lose 
my temper ” A delicate child is called “A come-see’’ the child has 
come to the world indetisively, to see whether or not it wishes to stay 



It Fai/$ h Increase Your Ford Power 


By Wilfred Funk 



1 1 IS i'ASY to increase one’s vocabulary and it takes \crv little time This page 'j 
IS a good beginning First, untc doun definitions of the test uords you think you ^ 
knou Then check th( word or phrase you belie\c is martst tn mtanin^ to the key \ 
uord Answers arc on the next pagt 


(1) i\(R}nMirY (in kre du' li ti)— A 
amaxtment B imbilitf C ignorance 
D pa^mnate faith 

i'l) I’NMunLO (un a loyd')--A not con- 
neited B ah white und mmphte C calm 
D inferior 

1)1 sron (dr spoil ) —'\ to destroy iit- 
hrly B to uusi to da a] C to plundir 
D to oiur-indnlge 

(4) ni\MiNis(fil aments) — A garments 
B fine thrt ads or fibres C uevei charai- 
tiristiLi of the hman faie 

(5) niAMN(> (bla\' tan si)- A notmety 
B offtnuvi not urn ss C siorn and abuse 
D lorruptwn 

(b) HI \M)iSFiviiNis (blan' dish ments)— A 
sla' len B thieveriei C flattering speichts 
D immaturiUt r 

(7) DrroNiNi (de pone' ent) — A one who 
opposes B a witni^s C one who looks to 
another for aid D om who p^oirasUnatts 

(8) MRAcious (vr ra\' shus)~ A wild 
B hiiinry C taitfiil D true 

(9) iNMsr (m vest') -A to begin H to 
envelop or surround C to examine carejully 
D to inquire about 

(10) pROPULSivi (pro prd' siv) — A ex- 

plosive B impatient C disgusting D 
impelling to action 


(11) osiiNT^noi’s (oss ten tav' shus) — 
A wealthy B talkative C showy D’ 
nois) 

(12) DOi'Rn (do()i' li)--A gloomily B 
wearily L insultingly D lagily 

(Id) ( iiMBROi s (kum' brus) — A like a 
I town B unwieldy ( cloudy D thick 

^14) ^MlU'l aiokY (im' biu la to ri)— A 
clumi) B nieding surgiral treatment C 
able to walk about O umertain 

(15) ( I RUJRM (ser' i bral or se re' bral)— 
A insane B feverish C pertaining to the 
brain D nenous and trembling 

(lb) \Tiw\Ri (a thwart')— A crosswise 
B flattened out C following D just ahead 

(17) PROFiss (prO fcss')~A to become ex- 
pert at B to proclaim C to plan D 
to foretell 

(18) 1 LAGGING (flag' mg)- A becoming 
ajraid B growing weak (' hesitating 
D limping 

(19) iNrRANsiGiN''F (ifi tfan' si gens)— 
A power B obstinate unwillingness to agree. 
C bitter crihctm D great anger 

(20) RhTAiiuoRi (fc tal' i a to n)— A 
impudent B full of repetitions C revenge- 
ful D sarcastic 


73 



Answers to 

"IT PAYS TO INCREASE 
YOUR WORD POWER" 

(1) INCREDULITY — B From the Latin /«- 
credulus (/«-, “not,” and iredere, “to be- 
lieve”) Hence, unbelief, doubt, scepti- 
cism, as, “She gave a sniff of mcredultty 
as she listened to his ston' ” 

(2) UNALLOYED — B Having no admixture 
to debase it Hence, absolute and com- 
plete, as, “It was a tragedy, poignant and 
unalloyed^' From ««-, “not,” and the 
Latin alh^ere^ “to bind to ” 

(3) DFSPOn — C Its Latin parent, despoltare^ 
means “to plunder”, “to pillage”, as, 
“It was the practice <if Attib to derpotl 
villages of the conqueied ” 

(4) FILAMENTS — B From the Latin filum, 
“thread” Hence, fine threads or fibres, 
as “the filaments of spiders’ uebs ” 

(5) BLATANCY — B Offensive noisiness and 
clamour, coarseness, as “the blatancy of 
some political speeches ” A word coined 
by the philosopher Herbert Spencer 

(6) BLANDISHMENTS— C Soothing oi flat- 
tering speeches or actions, as, “Men of 
integrity resist the blandishments of favoui 
seekers ” From the Latin blandus, “soft ” 

(7) DEPONENT — B A witness, especially 
one who gives written testimony under 
oath 

(8) VERACIOUS — D True, accurate, hon- 
est, as, “He gave an obviously veracious 
account ” Latin verus, “true ” 

(9) INVEST— B To envelop or surround, 
to clothe, as, “He continued to invest his 
hero with the virtues of a god ” From 
the Latin in^ “in,” and vestire, “to clothe ” 

(10) PROPULSIVE — D Driving forward, 
impelling to action, as, “His genius was 
helped by the propulsive forces of the 
Renaissance ” From the Latin propellere, 
“to drive forward ” 

74 


(11) OSTENTATIOUS — C Showy , marked by 
vain display, as, “Some think his house 
IS ostentatious ” From the Latin ostentatio, 
“a boastful display ” 

(12) DOURLY — A A Scottish borrowing 
meaning gloomily, sourly, sullenly, as, 
“ ‘Why are ypu criticizing me^’ he asked 
dourly ” 

(13) cuMBROLS— B Lnujcldy, burden- 
some, as, “He carried a cumbrous weight 
of responsibility ” 

(14) AMBULATORY — C From the l.atin 
ambulare, “to walk about ” Hence, able to 
walk about, as “Although he is now 
crippled his ambulator\ po>vers are as- 
tonishing ” 

(15) CERiBR\L — C From the Latin cere- 
brum^ “brain ” Hence, pertaining to the 
brain , as “a cerebral haemorrhage ’ 

(16) ATHWAHT — A Ciossvusc, across the 
course of, as, “Mountains which he 
athwart the winds ” From a-, “on,” 
and the Old Norse thvert, “across ” 

(17) PHorhss -B Claim, proclaim, as, 
“I df^ not profess to be a good golfer ” 
From the Latin professus^ “acknowl- 
edged 

(18) FiAGGiNG— B (jrowing weak, be- 
coming exhausted, failing, drooping, as, 
“His interest was Hagfi^mg ” 

(19) intransigi ncl — B Obstinate un- 

willingness to agree, stubborn and hos- 
tile opposition, as, “The Russian rulers 
are noted for their intransigence ” From 
the Latin /«-, “not,” and trahsigere^ “to 
agree ” 

(20) RiTALiATORY — C Revengcful , paying 
back evil tor evd , as '^retaliatory remarks ” 
The I^atin retaliatus^ from r^-, “back,” 
and talio^ “like for like ” 

Vocabulary Ratings 

20 correct exceptional 

19-17 correct .excellent 

16-14 correct . good 



"Where do the eggs come from'^’’ Johnny 
asked "Where did the 4^ 'come Jrom'^ 
And where was I when I wasn’t? , . ” 



Johnny Jack and His Beginning 


Condensed from Mothei 


Pearl S Buck 
'luthoi of rhe Good laith 


OHN ]\cKbON, whom everyone 
Aj called Johnny Jack, was five 
years old He had bright-blue 
eyes and yellow hair and he always 
wanted to know everything “Why 
— wh\ — why^” That was the way 
almost ever) thing he said began 
Johnny Jack lived on a farm 
where something was beginning al- 
most every day “Where do the eggs 
come froni'^’’ Johnny Jack asked his 
mother 

“The hens lay them, of course,” 
his mother said She sprinkled sugar 
on the apple pie she was making 
“I know that,” Johnny lack said 
“But why?” 

“Why^ Because if there weren’t 
eggs there wouldn’t be chickens ” 


“1 htn eggs are the beginnings of 
chickens,” Johnny said 
“That’s what they are,” his 
mother said She put the pie in the 
oven 

It was not only eggs Johnny Jack 
might go into the barn and see a 
tiny calf, just come trom somewhere 
or other, looking surprised as it 
walked about on its four rickety 
legs 

“Where does thecalf come from?” 
Johnnv Jack asked 
“Out of the cow, of course,” his 
mother said briskly 
“Like the eggs?” Johnny Jack 
persisted. “Then a calf is the begin- 
ning of a cow^” 

“Or a bull,” his mother said. 


Mother, The \fagazine of Happy Marriage (A*rit 19S4), Odham’s Press Ltd , 
189 High Holborn, London, W C t 


“Remember that people and animals 
come m twos.** 

“I didn’t come two,” Johnny Jack 
said. “I’m only one. I’d like some- 
body to play with *’ 

“You do need a sister or a 
brother,” his mother said 

Beginnings* There were so many 
of them. One day at the end of 
winter when the last snow had 
melted away from the hillsides 
Johnny Jack ran into the woods and 
saw the beginnings of spring Up 
from the brown earth under the 
snow came the snouts of bracken 
and little pale needles of wind- 
flowers. He brushed away the dead 
leaves from under the big oak tree 
and warm under the leaves were 
many small green things pushing 
up to begin their lives 
Suddenly a queer idea came into 
his mind. What was his beginning^ 
Onlv last week Louise, the dog, had 
puppies, seven of them One day 
they weren’t there and the next dav 
they were in the basket where his 
mother had laid an old black wool 
shawl. So he, too, must have begun 
One day he wasn’t there and the 
next day there he was 
He was so astonished at this idea 
that he ran straight to his mother 
“Where was I when I wasn’t*^” 
Johnny Jack asked The question 
burst out of him like a stopper from 
a bottle. 

His mother stared. “What do you 
mean, where were you when you 
weren’t?” 


Johnny Jack began to feel cross. 
“When I wasn’t here — hke the pup- 
pies* On Monday they weren’t here 
and then on Tuesday they were. 
Where were they before?” 

His mother laughed. “They just 
weren’t born yet,” she said 
“Born?” Johnny Jack said. 

“Yes, you know, born,” his 
mother »aid. “Every creature has to 
be born You were and 1 was.” 

“I don’t remember being born,” 
Johnny Jack said 
“I remember very well,” his 
mother said “You cried hard and 
were all red in the face.” 

“Why did I cry?” he said 
“I suppose you didn’t like being 
born,” his mother said “Although 
I don’t know why* Little chicks 
peck their way out of the eggs with- 
out any fuss and I don’t believe that 
puppies bark when they come out 
of their mother ” 

Johnny Jack suddenly asked 
“Did I come out of you?’' 

“Of course,” his mother said 
“And I had a busy time of it while 
vou were in the making Good 
gracious, I ate all sorts of healthy 
things to make you strong*” 

One why leads to another and 
Tohnny Jack felt a why coming up. 
Only this time it was a where. 
“Where was I in )ou?” he asked. 

His mother patted her nice little 
round stomach. She was always 
thinking she was fat and maybe she 
was now, the least bit “Just here,” 
she said. “You had a little private 
room all to yourself.” 



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yS ' THE KB4DBRS DWEST ' Uay 


“I couldn’t have,” Johnny Jack 
said. “Fm too big.” 

“In the beginning you weren’t,” 
his mother said “You were no big- 
ger than the smallest flower seed ” 

“In the beginning?” 

“In the beginning of vou,” his 
mother said. 

“But where was I before that?” 
Johnny Jack asked 

“Still in me,” his mother said 

“But before you were born?” 
Johnny Jack said 

“I was a tinv seed once, too, in- 
side my mother But you were in 
me and I was in her and she in her 
mother — and so it goes, back to the 
very beginning of everybody And 
nobody knows what the first begin 
ning was except the One who began 
It all.” 

“If I was so small inside \ou, 
what started me growing?” he 
asked 

His mother smiled “You are a 
smart boy, Johnny Jack,” she said 
“Of course something has to start 
the beginning The father has to 
start the mother’s seed or egg grow- 
ing and that is why there are two of 
everything. One person just can’t do 
It by herself or himself.” 

“How ’ Johnny Jack began 

“It’s very simple,’ his mother 
said. “The mother grows the seed, 
but the father grows the water of 
hfc in a secret fountain inside him 
^€hie drop of that makes the seed 
to grow ” 

‘How ” Johnny Jack began 

“Wait,” his mother said “You 


don’t need to ask. You’ll know. 
Some day you’ll grow tall, you’ll be 
a man, you’ll happen to meet a girl 
you like especially, and it will begin 
all over again. But I’ve decided to 
tell you something else, too You are 
going to have a playmate I am 
making a baby at this very moment, 
a little sister — I hope*” 

Johnny Jack was so astonished 
that he dropped the cake he was 
eating “Can you be sure it’s a sis- 
ter?” he asked 

“No,” his mother said “You can 
just hope for what vou want and 
then be glad of what vou get ” 
“Will she be here tomorrow?” 
Johnny Jack asked 
His mothei shook her head “Not 
tomorrow It takes cjuite a while to 
make a baby There is a good deal 
of finishing, too — you know, hair, 
nails, all the last touches ” 

“Are \ou sure vou know how to 
do It?” Johnny Jack asked 
“Oh, I don’t do it, exactly,” his 
mother said cheerfully “I just eat 
and sleep and stay happy Now run 
along, my Johnny Jack You have 
asked so many questions that I need 
a nap ” 

Johnny Jack went away because 
he wanted to think things over A 
baby sister — or brother — that would 
be nice How small would she be 
when she was born? he wondered. 
Could she ride his tricycle? He tip- 
toed into the house to ask his mother, 
but she was fast asleep 

The next day Johnny Jack’s 



^954 


JOHNNY JACK AND HfS BiCINNING 


79 


father and mother decided to send 
him to kindergarten, and there he 
went every day while the spring 
weather grew warm into summer, 
and he was so busy playing with all 
the children that he forgot to ask 
his mother as many questions as 
usual After kindergarten the chil- 
dren came over from the next farm 
or he went over there, and he 
learned how to play marbles and 
cowboys-and-Indians and all sorts of 
games 

One dav his father, instead of his 
mother, came to bring him home 
from school ‘ Your sister arrived 
rather suddenly,” his father said 
Johnnv Jack gave a yell “Let’s 
hurry and see her^” 

The doctor would not let Johnnv 
Jack go to the hospital and this 
seemed unkind until his father ex- 
plained that they could not let the 
tiny babies catch colds from other 
children, or maybe measles or 
whooping cough The day his father 
went to bring his mother home 
Johnny Jack stayed with Mrs 
Green, who came over from next 
door When he heard the car he 
went running to the gate 
Out of the car stepped his 
mother, looking exactly as she al- 
ways did except that she held a pink 
bundle She stooped so that Johnn) 
Jack could see what was in it A 
little round face looked up at him 
“This IS Susan,” his mother said 
“I did a good job, I think ” 
“Excellent,” his father said “She 
IS very pretty.” 


They went in together, the four 
of them, and Johnny Jack put his 
hands in his pockets He was glad 
he had not asked his mother whether 
Susan could ride his tricycle. She 
couldn’t — not for a long time By 
that time he would have a bicycle 
and he would give her the tricycle 
anyway 

Upstairs they went into the room 
his mother had got ready for Susan. 
There the little girl began to cry, 
“She’s hungry,” Mrs Jackson said. 
“I had better feed her hrst ” 

She sat down in the rocking chair 
and threw otf her jacket and un- 
buttoned the front of her blouse. 
Johnny jack watched her, much 
surprised “What art you doing?” 
he asked 

“1 .im going to nurse Susan, just 
the v'av I did you,” Mrs Jackson 
said “Mothers have breasts so that 
they can give their babies milk.” 

Johnny Jack Iclt a little queer Of 
course cows fed their calves and 
Louise fed hei puppies and he had 
not thought anything about it But 
mothers ' 

He stocxl watching Susan as she 
drank the milk, and a nice, warm, 
comfortable feeling came into his 
heart Then he saw his mother lift 
her head and smile at his father. 
“Another good beginning,” his 
father said 

“Beginning what, Daddy?” 
Johnny Jack asked 

His father laughed and tousled 
Johnny Jack’s hair “Everything,” 
his father said, “for everybody’” 



Smith’s Prime Rihs 

By H Allen Smith 


IFTEEN years ago I wrote a 
series of newspaper articles 
dealing with famous practical 
jokes. As soon as the articles ap- 
peared, a cascade of mail descended 
on the newspaper. The letters fell 
into two categories. One group de- 
nounced me for a cur and a cad 
The majority, however, sent in ad- 
ditional practical jokes and these 
letters I placed in a large red en- 
velope. In succeeding years I added 
to my collection These arc some of 
the best of them 

Hanging some paintings in his 
London house, Horace De Verc 
G)lc, the celebrated English prac- 
tical joker, ran out of string He 
walked to the nearest stationer’s 
shop for another ball. On his way 
home he saw an elegant stranger ap- 
proaching. The man was so stiflfish, 
so splendidly dressed, that Cole 
could not pass him b) . He whipped 
out his ball of string and stepped up 
to the gentleman 

“I say,” he said, “I’m in a bit of 
a spot. Wc*re surveying this area in 
order to realign the kerb, and my 
assistant has vanished. I wonder if 
l^^could prevail upon your time for 
a few moments'^” 

8o 


“To be sure,” said the stianger, 
ever the English gentleman 

“If,” said Cole, “you’d be so kind 
as to hold the end of this string Just 
stand where you are and keep a tight 
hold on It, and we’ll be finished in a 
few moments.” 

The splendid gentleman took 
hold of the end of the string and 
Cole began backing away from him, 
unwinding the ball He continued 
all the Way to the corner, turned the 
corner and disappeared Halfway 
up the street, the string gave out. 
He was about to tie it to a doorknob 
when Providence sent him a second 
gentleman, fully as elegant as the 
first. Cole stopped him Would the 
good sir be so kind as to assist him 
in a surveying operation ^ Certainly * 
Cole handed him the string and 
asked him to hold it. Then Cole 
hastened through an alleyway to 
the shop for another ball of string 
and returned home. How long the 
two men stood there holding the 
string he never knew. 

In World War II, Hugh Troy, 
artist, writer and accomplished 
practical joker, was sent to a U.S. 
Army training camp. He was soon 
in rebellion against paperwork. Re- 




SMlTJhr^ FMIMB K/jE#5 


ports, reports, reports and more re- 
ports on the most trivial details went 
to Washington. 

One day Troy devised a special 
report form and had it mimeo- 
graphed It was in re the number of 
flies trapped during each 24-hour 
period on the 20 fly- 
paper ribbons that 
hung in the mess hall 
The report included 
a sketch plan of the 
mess hall, showing the 
location of each rib- 
bon in relation to en- 
trances, tables, lights, 
windows and kit- 
chen Each ribbon was 
identified b) a code 
number Trov’s first 
flypaper report show- 
ed that during a 24- 
hour period Flypaper 
Ribbon X-5 trapped 
and retained 49 flics 
Ribbon Y-2 did even 
bettt r — 6^ flies And 
so on. Fie sent the re- 
port off to Washing- 
ton. Every day he 
sent in a report 

About a week after ho sent in the 
first one, two fellow officers called 
on him “You been catching any 
hell from Washington,’* they asked, 
“about some kind of goofy flypaper 
reports?” 

“Why, no,” said Hugh. 

“It’s about a daily report on fly- 
paper in the mess halls. We’ve been 
getting official queries, wanting to 


know why we haven’t been sending 
them in.” 

“Oh,” said Troy. “I send mtnc 
m every day.” 

They protested that nobody had 
told them about anv flypaper re 
ports, so T roy ga vc them copies of the 
mimeographed blank. 
After that every bun- 
dle that went in to 
Washington included 
a census of dead flies, 
Troy thinks it’s pos- 
sible that the daily 
flypaper report be- 
came standard Army 
procedure 

A\ tMKtviELY seri- 
ous young man who 
worked at the Walt 
Disney Studio in 
Flollywood made a 
habit of biinging his 
lunch Euch noon 
he’d go to a nearby 
shop and buy a bottle 
of milk and a tin of 
fruit Some of his 
colleagues went to the 
same shop and bought 
some tinned fruit and tinned vege- 
tables and then switched the labels. 
The) bribed the grocer to use this 
disguised stock whenever their 
victim made a purchase 

Soon the young man began find- 
ing beans or corn instead of fruit in 
tne tins. He asked his associates 
what he ought to do about it. They 
said It was truly a phenomenon and 




82 


SMltWS^PRIME RIBS 


that he ought to try it for “Believe 
It or Not.” So he sat down, com- 
posed a long letter and sent it to 
Robert Ripley Then, since it was 
lunchtime, he walked to the shop, 
bought his bottle ot milk and a tin 
of pears, then returned to his office 
and got out his tin opener This 
time there was no fruit in the tin, 
and no vegetables — only a small test 
tube, tightly corked Inside the test 
tube was a piece of paper which 
said. 

Dear Sir 

I don't believe a damned word 
of It 

Robert Ripley 

I w\Nr It understood that I am 
not a practical jc^ktr I have been 
involved in them, usuallv as a vic- 
tim, but I’m not a practitioner I 
can remember having pla\cd onlv 
one joke in the last ten \ears A 
letter came from a man in a distant 
city who had been reading some of 
my books. He insulted me at the 
outset by saying he knew I wouldn't 
even read his letter M) secretary 
would read it, but I wouldn’t The 
remainder of his impertinence was 
addressed to my secretary and, as 
he warmed to his task, he cxpiesscd 
the hope that she was )oung and 
redheaded and beautiful 
I have never had a secretary, but 
I invented one now I wrote to this 
worm i pretended I was my secre- 
tary. I told him he must have psy- 
chic powers, for I was young and 
redheaded and people thought I 


was not bad to look at. I said he 
sounded like a really interesting 
fellow, the kind of masculine man 
I (the redheaded secretary) was just 
dying to meet. If he ever came to 
New York, please let me know — 
I'd ask the boss to let me off work 
for a day and a night and meet him 
in New York and we’d have dinner 
and go places and do things I signed 
the letter “Eunice WagstafI ’ And 
posted it 

Two days later the telegraph office 
phoned my house and asked if we 
had a Eunice Wagstaff in the place. 
Fortunarely I lemcmbered the letter 
and took the message The tele- 
gram said “Leav ing tor New York 
ind you tonight Meet me tomorrow 
Hotel B ” 

I debated with mvsclf about stop- 
ping him Then I decided that he 
deserved it 

liRiyN HecaiEs, a wealthy busi- 
nessman, was a renowned practical 
joker On rainy days he would often 
enter a bar, have a drink or two, 
and leave his handsome umbrella 
hanging on the bar Then he’d re- 
tire to a corner and watch the 
eventual, inevitable theft It de- 
lighted him to follow the culprit to 
the sticet, where, on being opened, 
the urnbrella discharged posters 
proclaiming this uvibrflla stolen 

FROM BRIAN HUGHES 

Franklin D. Roosevelt once 
decided to test the theory that peo- 
ple at social functions pay no atten- 





THE READER^S DIGEST 


84 


tion to the murmured wor^s some- 
times required. He chose a big 
White House party, where there 
was a long reception line. As each 
guest came up and took his hand, 
the President flashed his celebrated 
smile and murmured, “I murdered 


my grandmother this morning.” 
Only one guest was conscious of 
what he said. This man, a banker, 
heard the words, “I murdered my 
grandmother this morning,” and 
promptly replied, “She certainly 
had It coming ” 


10,000 Company Planes Expedite Business 

O K Armstrong in Air Facts 

usiNEss FLYING has bccomc one of the most important factors in 
American industrial life Company-owned planes outnumber airliners 
almost ten to one, fly more miles, have a higher safety rate They permit 
salesmen to catch prospects at the right time and place, and make it 
possible for executives to keep in personal touch with company needs in 
widely scattered areas 

There were 10,000 business planes flying in 1953, almost ten times as 
many as the 1,056 domestic scheduled airline planes in operation In 1951, 
businesses bought 2,303 private planes, and in 1952 they bought 3,058 
About $200,000,000 IS now invested in business aircraft, and annual 
expenditure for salaries and related expenses totals $75,000,000 

Companies with widely scattered plants find quick travel by air indis- 
pensable Continental Can Company operates more than 100 plants, from 
Canada to Cuba The company has four planes, 31 people on its flying 
staff, and a hangar which cost $300,000 

More than i,Soo of the business aircraft flying today are multi-eng ned 
types. These larger planes are usually equipped with all the gadgets 
needed for work and relaxation in flight Many of them have sofas, fold- 
ing wriang-desks, television, air to-ground telephones A number have 
wire recorders for dictation Facilities for serving food and refreshments 
are standard equipment 

In 1952, business aircraft flew 3,250,000 passenger hours — 625,000 more 
than the total flown by domestic airlines The three-year safety record of 
business planes is less than 5 fatalities for every 100 million miles flown, 
compared to *9 for domestic commercial airlines. 

In the years ahead business flying may prove to be an important factor 
in locating firms in rural areas With about 5,000 airfields available to 
business aircraft, many firms will get away from big-city congestion and 
carry their contribution of employment and higher standards of living 
to smaller communities throughout America. 



“The heart has reasons which reason does not \now“ 

iTri-. T • 

Living 

Is More Than Skin Deep 



By Afdis 

H ow LONG Has It been since you 
have allowed yourself the lux- 
ury of acting as you feeP The 
basic human responses, love, anger, 
laughter, even fear, hold enormous 
reservoirs of power, but too many 
of us refuse to trust them Da\ after 
day we leave this rich store of vital- 
ity untapped It is mature and civil- 
ized, we think, to be reserved and 
rational; it is primitive and childish 
to let go. 

But emotional response is not the 
opposite of maturity. It is the op- 
posite of cynicism and apathy. In 
this demanding world we can no 
more get along without emotional 
power than an engine can run with- 
out fuel. “Men and motor-cars.” 
wrote Channing Pollock, “progress 
by a senes of internal explosions.” 
Emotions are just that — explosions 
of energy which marshal all our 
physical and psychic forces. Anger 
and fear send adrenalin into the 


Whitman 

blood stream and glycogen to fa- 
tigued muscles to restore them; 
enthusiasm quickens the mental 
piocesses , love makes others respond 
to us 

After World War I, when parts of 
Germany were occupied by Ameri- 
can Negro troops and feeling ran 
high against them, Roland Hayes, 
the Negro singer, faced a hostile 
audience in Berlin A barrage of 
hisses greeted him and he might 
have retreated But Roland Hayes 
had a great love in his heart for peo- 
ple and he believed that it would 
conquer For almost ten minutes he 
stood quietly, his head bowed in 
prayer, waiting for the hissing to 
cease At the first sign that it was 
ovei, he moved to the piano and, 
discarding his planned programme, 
began to sing softly Schubert’s 
“Thou Art My Repose.” With the 
first notes of the song a silence fell 
on the angry crowd. As Hayes, 

S5 


Condentsd from LifoUme Ltvtng 



86 


LIi^NG IS MORE 

deeply moved, continued to sing, 
the hatred \anished and a deep 
communion between singer and 
audience took its place. “The heart,*' 
says Pascal, “has reasons which 
reason does not know “ 

Too many of us feel and think 
timidly, the result is that our lives 
often seem to lack zest and idvcn- 
turc. Look at Evangeline Booth, for 
so long the belov ed head ot the Sal- 
vation Armv At 70, she sparkled 
with lite and enthusiasm Ever) day 
she mounted a horse few people 
could ride, waited until two grcxmis, 
frantically holding it, let go, and 
then dashed awa) In the suminei 
she dived and swam in the lake at 
her mountain home At night she 
kept a notebook beside her bed so 
that when she woke she could re- 
cord her thoughts and feelings 

On Arturo Toscaninrs 80th birth- 
day, someone asked his son, Walter, 
what his father lanktd as his most 
important achievement The son re- 
plied, “For him there can be no 
such thing W'hatcvcr he happens to 
be doing at the moment is the big- 
gest thing in his life — whether it is 
conducting a s>mphon\ or peeling 
an orange ” 

So much has been written about 
our harmful emotions that we have 
come to regard strong feelings as a 
sign that some chi ng is wrong with 
us. The truth is that it may be more 
dangeious to be un dcr 'CmoXiondX 
than to be oi/er-emotional. The 
American Institute of Family Rela- 
tions has discovered that depressive. 


THAN SKIN DEEP 

critical people, low m cordiality and 
lacking in demonstrations of affec- 
tion, are most often the cause of 
divorce They dwarf and inhibit the 
love which is offered them 

Recently a middle-aged couple of 
my accju.iinlance v/ent through the 
long painful preliminaries of a di- 
vorce, onlv U) be reconciled on the 
eve of the trial In the judge’s 
chambers, they shamefacedly ad- 
mitted they had cliangcd their 
minds 

“Whv didn’t you talk it over in 
the first place and av oid all this grief 
and publicity the judge asked 

Hesitantly the wife, a disciplined 
and undemonstrative woman, an- 
swered “john WMS seeing sorheone 
else People told me he was in love 
with her 1 couldn’t have talked to 
him about it without making a 
scene So 1 left a note saying I 
wanted a divorce and just went 
awav (juietly ” 

Wcarilv, the judge pushed useless 
documents away from him “Do 
>011 set now,” he said, “how easily 
this might have been avoided if you 
had made that scene ^ It’s possible, 
you know, for people to be too 
civilized ’’ 

When doctors tell us that our 
emotions can make us ill, they’re 
not talking about the big breath- 
taking drives but about the contin- 
ual gnawing of little niggardly feel- 
ings envy, worry, resentment, 
jealousy. “Most people with emo- 
tionally induced illness,” writes Dr. 
John Schindler, “suffer from the 




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THE KEADEKS DIGEST 


38 

monotonous repetition of many 
small unpleasant emotions which 
produce anxiety, frustration, dis- 
couragement and fear ” 

Once we have fallen into the 
habit of nursing such emotions it is 
not easy to change But it is a fact 
that great emotions push out mean 
ones. In the midst of great joy, deep 
sorrow, righteous anger and heart- 
stopping fear we forget oui petty, 
daily grievances One sure remedy, 
therefore, is consciously to try to 
replace little feelings with big ones 
Those who have learned to face 
the hazards of life, who have been 
truly and profoundly moved, sel- 
dom indulge in petty, self-destruc- 
tive feelings The people of London 
discovered in the blitz that they 
were sustained and moved by a 
curious contagion of s) mpathy , men 
who storm war-time beaches are far 
removed from small grievances and 
imagined troubles The watchful 
and timid, who try to dodge life’s 
major experiences, too often find 
that they are inhabiting a vacuum 
The changing power of love is 
well known, but hatred, too, can 
carry a force that need not always 
be denied There are plenty of 
things in the world which we ought 
to hate — injustice, cruelty, greed 
“When I am angry,” said Luther, 
“I can write, pray and preach well, 
for then my whole temperament 
is quickened, my understanding 
sl^rpened, and all mundane vexa- 
tiiias and temptations depart.” 
Emotion, to be truly felt, must be 


shared, forthrightly and without 
shame. How much deeper and 
more wonderful the experience of 
love if lovers could more often put 
into words the feeling they have^ 
Because it is so hard for most of us 
to communicate deeply personal 
feelings, the language of emotions 
must be learned It is truly a skill, 
civilized and sensitive The first 
step IS to give yourself permission 
to be emotional in words Too 
many of us are suspicious of the 
language of feeling We tend to 
think of It as superficial, sentiment- 
al, trite We are afraid that we will 
be misunderstood. 

But It IS a great mistake to sup- 
pose that we are happier in our re- 
lationships with people if we keep 
our conversation safe, if we water 
down our true feelings Too often 
we sa\ “thank you” when we mean 
“God bless you ” Or we say, “John 
isn’t all he should be,” when we 
mean he is a scoundrel 

Frankness attracts frankness, 
honest speaking almost always 
clears the air and brings out un- 
spoken thoughts Words tliat are 
warm and alive create an atmo- 
sphere that is warm and alive. It is 
a mistake to be eternally afraid to 
speak on impulse, or to make an 
impulsive, spontaneous gesture We 
need to use our feelings wisely but 
we should neither fear them nor be 
ashamed of them The significant 
moments in our lives are those in 
which we feel most deeply, and in 
which we act as wc feel. 



As Eisenhower’s right-hand man, Richard Nixon is turning 
a traditionally soft spot into a man-sizcd job 


\ Non hind of Vire I’rosideiil 


Condensed fiom Time 


oH\ Adams, the 
£ 1 r a t V 1 c e- 
M ^ *]3 President of the 

^ [ 'nited States, said 

‘the most insig- 
riiheanl olluc that ever the inven- 
tion of man contrived ” Jefferson 
found the Vice-Prcsidcnc) “tran- 
quil and unoffending,” assuring 
him of “philosophical evenings in 
winter” and “rural da)s in sum 
mer ” Teddy Roosevelt referred to 
his election to the Vice- Presidency 
as “taking the veil ” Later, when 
,hc Had succeeded President MeKin 
ley, Teddy was annoyed by the 
tinkling of the enormous “Jefferson 
chandelier” in his office “Take it 
to the office of the Vice-President,” 
he said “He doesn’t have anything 
to do It will keep him awake ” 
Undci the Constitution, the Vice- 
President’s sole specific mission is to 
preside over the Senate Since the 
jealous Senate has always inter- 
preted “preside” in the narrowest 
possible sense, anybody who can 
stay awake can do that job. The re- 



cords ot the first 35 Vice- »idcnts 
include a generous proportion of 
nonentities, some able men and four 
towering figures John Adams, 
Thomas Jefferson, John C Calhoun 
and Theodore Roosevelt Not one 
—not even the tour greats — ever 
made anything ot the job 

Richaid Ni\on, 3fith Vice-Presi- 
dent, reali/ed the painfulK narrow 
limits of the office, but he has re- 
fused to act as though it were a 
stepping-stone to oblivion The first 
Viec-Presidtnt to be born in the 
20th century, he is a new kind of 
politician and, with a fresh ap- 
proach, he was able to see that the 
mid-2oth-eentiiiy problems and re- 
sponsibilities of the (jovernment’s 
executive branch created an oppor- 
tunity for a new kind of Vice-Presi- 
dent The result is that he is one of 
the busiest, most useful and most 
influential men in Washington. 

Nixon has made himself into a 
proje^ tion of President Eisenhower. 
He builds bridges from the White 
House to Congress, to Government 
departments, to the officials and 



^ A mw Kim OF 

people of other lands, to the press 
' and to the U.S. public. Much of his 
work is outside the spotlight’s edge. 
But his unique position is signalized 
by a sharp fact he is the first Vice- 
President in history to preside over 
meetings of the Cabinet and of the 
relatively new National Security 
Council. When press of other busi- 
ness calls Ike away during a meet- 
ing, Ike turns to Nixon and says, 
“Dick, you take o\er ” 

Unlike Vice-President Harry 
Truman, who was not even told 
about the atomic bomb until he be- 
came President, Nixon has, with 
Eisenhower’s enthusiastic encour^ 
agement, become steeped in know- 
ledge of strategic position and 
policy His advice also carries much 
weight on such questions as internal 
security, labour policy and political 
tactics. 

Eisenhower and Nixon are en- 
gaged in an effort to strengthen the 
executive branch at the top, to en- 
large the Presidential influence in 
the Congress and the bureaucracy 
If It works — and it seems to be 
working — the new function of the 
Vice-President may help to solve a 
crisis of modern government die 
conflict between the unity of na- 
tional policy represented by the 
President and the multiplicity re- 
presented by Congressmen, special- 
ized administrators and pressure 
groups. 

The Wheel of Fortune. The young 
man, 41, who has undertaken die 
formidable task of vitalizing the 


VICE-PRESIDENT 

Vice-Presidency, has a passion for 
hard work and simplified expres- 
sion A professor from his university 
days remembers that Nixon used to 
write very brief answers on exams. 
“At first you thought that he 
couldn’t answer the question in 
such a short space But, by golly, he 
had gone to the heart of the prob- 
lem and put it down simply ” 

In World War II Nixon became 
a lieutenant-commander in the U S 
Navy Afterwards he returned to 
his native Calit()rnia--and promptly 
got himself elected to Congress 
Congressman Nixon a husky (five 
feet ten inches, 13 stone), black- 
browed yourig man with a fire in 
his eyes, voted with the bulk of his 
party on 78 per cent of the issues; 
most of his deviations from the 
party were on the liberal side What 
Eisenhower stands for today is re- 
markably like what Nixon was vot- 
ing for in 1947-52 But Nixon was 
)ust another promising young Con- 
gressman when the Alger Hiss case 
came up in the summer of 1948 
So convincingly did Alger Hiss 
deny charges of treasonable Com- 
munist activity that the Congres- 
sional Committee investigating him 
was about to call off its inquiry. But 
committee-member Nixon detected 
ommous hedging in Hiss’s testi- 
mony “I was a lawyer and I knew 
he was a lawyer,” Nixon recalls. “I 
felt [he] was just too slick. If Hiss 
was lying, he was lying in such a 
way as to avoid perjury, with a very 
careful use of phrasing.” 



'NDENTOI 


UnBro, b: 
^ « Sons r 


Dl 

P 

Sr, 

f 






.93 

To get facts, Nixon worked round 
the clock In the second Hiss trial, 
Nixon’s efforts paid off 

Armed with his Hiss-casc success, 
Nixon ran tor the Senate in 1950, 
and was ^.lected hv a big majority 
Less than two )cars later, Nixon 
was the Republican nominee for 
Vice-President 

Mr. Fixit. Soon .ifter he took office 
as Vice-President, Nixon became 
the Administration’s “Mi Fixit,“ 
the hand) man who bound up leaky 
pipes and law wires that Lonneet 
the White House to Omgress This 
job was one toi no mean plumber, 
for it involved some explosive fix- 
tures, notabl) Senator McCarthy 
As an investigator with a better re- 
cord of success, Nixon was in a 
position to argue with McCarthy 
At his advice, McCarthy called off 
his investigation of the Central In- 
telligence Agenev and his threat to 
fight against Senate confirmation of 
Harvard University President James 
Conant’s appointment as U S High 
Commissioner in Germany 

During last year s Congressional 
session, Nixon made his voice heard 
more and more He arranged mili- 
tary briefings for Congressional 
leaders, lobbied in the House of 
Representatives for administiation 
measures and saved the European- 
aid bill from impending defeat at 
the hands of economizers In the 
fight over Defence Secretary Wil- 
son’s cut in the Air Force budget, 
Nixon shrewdly counselled the 
President that the Democratic at- 


May 

tack would overcome Wilson’s ex- 
posed position unless Ike threw his 
full weight behind it As it turned 
out, no less was needed 

Mr. Stand-In. Successful as Mr 
Fixit, Nixon gradually assumed the 
more important role of stand-m for 
the President No man can push 
himself into that position, and Dick 
Nixon did not push Ike took the 
initicitivc at every stage Nixon's 
part was to demonstrate that he 
could take responsibility, wade 
through mountains of factual home- 
work, handle older and more 
powerful men tactfully, and, above 
all, that he had no policy but Ike's 
policy 

As Ike’s stand-m, Vice-President 
Nixon, accompanied by his wife, 
Pat, last October set off on a 45.539- 
mile, ten-week, world-Wide trip to 
spread good will m the Far East 
and to find some facts To express 
friendship, Nixon shook hands with 
close on 100,000 Asians 

Back in W ashington, Nixon found 
that his prestige had grown with 
the success of his trip, and he took 
up his role of adviser on domestic 
policy 

On Capitol Hill, Nixon is a Presi- 
dential agent, not a Congressional 
leader His fellow Californian, Wil- 
liam Knowland, the Senate major- 
ity leader, must decide what bills 
the Senate will take up; Nixon can 
only advise the President on what 
to ask tor. Knowland may, on oc- 
casion, disagree publicly with the 
President. Nixon submerges his 


THE READER^S DIGEST 



jg;4 ^ OF ViCE-PRFSIDENT 

views if they conflict with Ike’s, crowded with lunches, charity bene:; 

The Vice-President and his wife fits, bazaars 

own a home in Washington Their For both the Nixons, most evefi- 
two exuberant young daughters, mgs involve formal dinners. Nixon. 

“Tricia” and Jnlic, wake Nixon would like to hold such engage** 

early every morning From then ments down to four a week, and 

until after breakfast is his onlv time spend the time thus saved with his 

to play and be with them At eight family and fi lends — but if he suc- 

o’clock he leaves for the C ipitol and ceeds that iS not how he will spend 

a full da\ of meetings and appoint- it I le has more homework to do, 

ments more preparations for (kibinet meet- 

Pat Nixon’s day is almost as full mgs and for tlie quiet, persuasive 

ns her husband’s She docs most of two-, three-, and four man confer* 

the laundrv and housework, half enees held m his office, under the 

the cooking and all the shopping )efTerson thandeliei If it tinkles, as 

The resident maid’s job is mosth it did in I’eddv Roosevelt’s day, 

bab\-tendmg With Nhxon seldom Dick Nixon will probably not 

home, his wife has learned to repair notice lie is bus\ being the first 

squeaky stairs, sticky doors, taps, meiimbcni to upgrade the Vice- 

light fixtures Her afternoons are Prtsidenev into a man sized job. 

I V; dar2t I V/ nacular 

“How fOMt you iK\ei married^’’ I once asked our middle-?ged hired 
man “A woman won’t bite you ’’ 

“No,” he retorted, “but th< y kin sure gnaw ” — Contniuittd by John Bobuia 

Whln his foreman walked off the job, a building eontiattor offered the 
post to one of the w'orkmen “Nope,” said the tarpenter, “I just want to 
hue out tiom the neck down ” C onlnbultJ by AlUn Clattwood 

In a mob of pre-Chiistmas shoppers in a Phanix, Arizona, shop, a 
voung woman, obviously vciy angry about something, wa^ struggling 
towards a shopw'alker As she boreil thi(»ugh the crowd, the long, lean 
man in a ten-gallon hat trailing after her murmured “Naow, honey • 
Don’t lay your ears down f” Utnoit News 

Like many a brand-new mother, I picked up the baby whenever she 
a led “I wonder what makes her cry so much,” I said to the nurse 

“ ’Tain’t nothm’ wrong with her,” she replied, “ ’ccptin’ she’s got arm 
colic and lap fever ” — Contnbuted by Mrs H R Snnta Cruz 

An Oklahoma judge once stopped a lawyers’ wrangle in a murder case 
with, “Gentlemen, the only issue before this court is. Should the deceased 
have went ? “ —CoUtit^t 



' It’s not all her fault 


How to C:urc 
a Boiiuf/ Wife 


By Elsie McCormii k 



osT men who have to talk 
to a woman for more than 
ten minutes (barring, of course, 
communings of an amorous nature) 
arc bored as stif? as a smoked her- 
ring. Both socially and matrimoni- 
ally speaking, amusing and interest- 
ing talk between the sexes is a 
rarity 

•Consider the average party given 
for the married crowd Within five 
minutes the men are huddled to- 
gether at one end of the room like 
a herd of bachelor seals Or watch 
couples who have been married 
for more than a year having dinner 
together Usually they are as silent 
as a pair of goldfish. Only occasion 
ally docs one see a wedded couple 
talking with animation, laughter 
a glow of interest m their faces 
* Is this a serious matter? Yes, it is. 
Boredom can slow down bodily pro- 
cesses and make one feel as old and 

9 ^ 


worn out as a discarded shoe Also, 
marriage counsellors find that bore- 
dom underlies thousands of cases of 
heavy drinking, infidelity and de- 
sertion, even though it is praetically 
never mentioned in dnorce com- 
plaints 

Well, who IS to blame? Probably 
both parties are, though if a nor- 
mally intelligent woman is turning 
into a bore the chances are that her 
husband is more to blame than she 
Aftci all, he is the one who gels out 
every day and he might be expected 
to bring home a few ideas along 
with the pay cheque 

Many matrons complain that 
when they try to hold a conversa- 
tion their husbands don’t listen 
The surest way for a man to create 
a self-pitying bore is ncjt to pay 
any attention to what she is saying. 

It isn’t that a man should devote 
the entire evening to being conver- 


Condfnsrd from The Saturday Evening Post 



to CURE 

sationally entertaining. Practically 
any wife would be happy as a sand 
boy if her husband put a look of 
expectant interest on his face and 
gave her his undivided attention for 
as long as 20 minutes 

Some men with over-talkative 
wives are afraid that if they en- 
courage them to converse the result 
might [>e something like opening 
a great dam They shouldn’t worry 
The non-stop talker is usually a 
woman who is trying desperately to 
be noticed Pa> her the compliment 
of listening and of commenting 
occasionally, and \ou will probably 
find that her flow of words slows 
dcjwn to the normal rate 

In fact, a husband who puts aside 
his carmufls now and then might 
even discover that his spouse is say- 
ing some rather interesting things 

Sometimes a man complams that 
when he tries to talk about his job 
his wife wears the carmuffs Well, 
sir, just what do you tell her^ 
Absent-mindedness on the part of a 
wif^. IS certainl) reprehensible, but 
there might be less of it if the in- 
formation a husband brings home 
weren’t so frequently confined to 
grumbling 

I know a woman who had been 
married for years to a rather reticent 
gentleman m the packaging busi- 
ness She knew practically nothing 
about It except the layout of the 
office and the disposition of his boss, 
which was acid Then one evening 
she half-heartedly went to a meeting 
at which her mate made a speech 


A BORlTtG WIFE 

He told of a new way of packing 
awMv wedding dresses so they can 
be preserved without discoloration, 
and perhaps worn b\ the bride’s de- 
scendants 100 years from now. He 
grew eloquent about packaging eggs 
and even dvnamitc so they can be 
parachuted safely from planes to 
settlers in the Arctic The lady 
was astonished — she had no idea 
that her husband’s calling was that 
interesting She got him into the 
habit of telling her about it, and 
eventually gave him some ideas that 
proved successful 

It’s an odd thing that a man will 
hire public opinion experts and 
other advisers to tell him what 
women think about the things he 
IS manufacturing, and never dream 
ot asking his wife 

If you want to save your wife 
from being a bore, why not make a 
conscious effort to provide her with 
at least one laugh a day^^ Surely 
you can find one amusing story, 
idea or incident during the hours 
away fiom home, even if you have 
to crib It from an old maga/anc It 
will lighten the atmosphere, reduce 
tensions, cut down nagging and en- 
courage her to look for funny things 
in hei day to tell you 

To make domestic conversation 
less boring, get away occasionally 
from immediate material matters 
and plunge into science, religion or 
national and international affairs. 
Try picking out something interest- 
ing in the paper and getting your 
wife’s comments on it Your talk 



THE READER'S DfCEST 


about the (children should be varied 
'^y discussions about what to do 
'‘'after the nestlings have flown off the 
\pcrch Many couples let their retire- 
' ment age sneak up on them without 
giving It an advance thought Then, 
when the time comes, they move to 
} a ^strange town and arc promptly 
"bored into a state just one jump 
ahead of a coma 

The couples I know who have re- 
tired most succcssfiillv studied and 
discussed the subject for vears One 
Dair now spend their summers in a 
beautiful resort town, running a 
ittle photographic business foi tour 
ists. Another couple have been tak- 
ing tramp steamer trips round South 
America People «»ctualh pa\ to 
hear them talk about their experi- 
ences A third couple spend some 
months each year living inexpen- 
sively on the edge of American 
Indian reservations, gathering ma- 
terial for a series of boys’ books 
Another pair bought an old printing 
press and have a lovelv time turn- 
ing out greetings cards and artistic 
booklets for their friends 

Indeed, a very important way in 
which a couple can prevent ordeal 
by boredom is to share a mutually 
interesting hobby, be it bird-watch- 
ing, a flower garden or astronomy 
So, if you want to keep your wife 
from boring you, you could try be- 
coming interested in some of the 
thing*^ she likes Husbands have 
been known to visit antique show’s 
and art exhibits without dropping 
deadi and the man who takes a 


conversational interest in his wife^s 
clothes is a clever fellow It is likely 
to improve her disposition enor- 
mously, and may also sa\e bags of 
cash The woman who buys a new 
dress ever) time she goes shopping 
IS often trying, unconsciously, to 
attract the attention of an unobser- 
vant husband If a man tells his 
wife that a certain frock is extremely 
becoming, she mav wear it cheer- 
fully for a couple of seasons * 

In addition to helping matters at 
home, you might like to do some- 
thing .ibout sa\ing your wife from 
being a bore at paitics No doubt 
thousands of men have lost yaluable 
business clients or reduced their 
chames of promotion because of 
an irrititing or yawn-stimulating 
spouse Men don’t wxint to hear, at 
parties, about the alpine price of 
food or the shortage cjf sitters-in. 
They aie also irked by the butterfly 
talker who flutters from subject to 
subject So why not help your 
wntc wnth a few tips ^ Tell her that 
George Cdarkc is still excited about 
his tup to Europe last spriniJ, that 
Sam Brown is an authority on the 
new wonder fabrics, that Joe 
Doakes is a notable collector of 
cuttlefish holders Thus guided, she 
won’t have to flutter about looking 
for a topic of interest, and a better 
time will be had by all 
A great advantage of this project 
of saving your wife from becoming 
a bore is that, in the process, you 
may become more interesting your- 
self. How fortunate for us alP 




Across America in 1903 

By Tom Mahoney 

( \nrR horseless car Jackson paid !i 5 ^,ooo foi a new 

na^es took to the open road 20 hoi sc power, chain diiven, two- 
^ at the tuin ot the centurv, a cvhndci \\ inton, made in C^lcvc- 
few visional les began to dream of land b\ a forme i bicvclc manufac- 
driving one aeToss America tiiier The car's be st speed was about ’ 

One da\ in 1^03 Dr Horatio 20 miles an hour He ehrntened it 
Nelion Jackson of Burlington, the Veimont and loaded it with 
Vermont, began arguing about sleeping bags, two spare tv res, an 
motor-ears at the Universitv Cdub c\tra petiol lank, a compass, an axe, 
m San Francisco Di Jackson, 31- a riHe, a shotgun, two pistols, a ^ 
year-old son of a Canadian minister, watei bag, extra cans of oil and — 
had given up medicine because of a most inipoitant -a block and tackle 
touch of tuberculosis, and wasstudv- with 150 ftet ol rope 
mg western mining projects On M.i\ 2^ J.ickson and his 22- 
Though his knowledge of cars was ) ear-old mechanic, Sew'all Crocker, 
slight, he rose to their delence when set out foi the eastern United Slates* 
a member asserted that “nobody To avoid the Nevada desert, they 
will ever drive a car coast to coast ” headed north for the old Oregon 
“ril bet you $50 that 1 can do it Trail Next day, taking turns at the 
in three months,” Jackson said The wheel, they reached Sacramento, 
wager was accepted. California, where they spent a day 

Condensed from Mechanix Illustrated 07 



ACROSS AMERICA IN 1903 


98 

obtaining maps --the road map for 
motorists not \ct being invented 
Over nai rowing, inereasinglv 
rocky roads theW inton rolled noith- 
wards, arming m Chinas, Cali- 
forhia, on Mav :5o, with most ot its 
camping ecpnpnu nt threm n o(T and 
Its rear i\res eiil to ril^bons Jackson 
telcgiaphed for new l\rcs When 
the\ failed toamsc atlei ihrcedass, 
he and Crockei \Map[)cd tlic lear 
wheels with lopc and |)iished on to 
Lakes lew in Oiegon 
Two l\ res an IS cd ti oin S m 1 r.m- 
cisco and alter three tl 's s ol le st and 
repairs the motor. su stilted a».r(‘ss 
the Oregon desert Water was 
scaue T he\ eonsiistd then dunk 
ing stippK In putting .ilk. lime w.iter 
from deseil sfiiing'. into the ridia 
tor At Silsei L.ikc tlu\ I. in out ot 
petrol (Tcxkei vs.ilkt d 2() mik s and 
returned next das with two g illons 
of petrol .md three (d hen/me 
At Ontario, on the Oregon Idaho 
boreler, four new tyies ariist cl Ironi 
Akron, Ohio The W' niton eiossed 
the wSnake River In ieir\ and start- 
ed south-eastwards .dong the Lhnon 
Pacific railwMS traces Soon rain Ir- 
gan to fcdl and the e.ir beearne bog- 
ged Hitching the block .md taek’j 
to a tree, then pulled the Whntonto 
firmer ground The impotent whirl 
mg of Its rear wheels iii the mud 
ave them an idea At the nest mud- 
ole they tied the rope about one of 
the big hubs and bv winding up 
the rope the car pulled itself out 
At midnight, June 13, the car 
reached Caldwell, Idaho There a 


fight between two bull terriers was 
staged in honour of the visitors. 
Jackson was hoirificd by the spec- 
tack, [>ut he liked the winning dog 
aiiel honght him for .1 mascot Chns- 
teiKcl ‘‘bud” and gisen a pair of 
gog<gles to piotect his e\es trorn the 
(lust, he s.it between the men 
More lain fell hollowing the bed 
of a siieam towMrels Mountain 
Home rhe\ were eiigulteeJ l»\ a sud 
elen use ol watei Hie dog swam 
ashoie Dr J.iekson and Oockcr at 
tiehcel the block .md t.iekle, but 
could nut budge the bogged ma- 
chine A tarmei with i tour horse 
te.nn piilkd them out si\ houi slater 
hr>ll(;Anig the L'nion P.ieitu 
tracks, olten .letii.ilK humping 
along the sleepers lor miles, the 
W niton got to hoeatello c'n June 17, 
and Scjda Spimgs the iv \t cla\ 

At Montpelier the ball be irings 
rolled out ol one of the tront wheels 
1 he mgeinous Caoeker toniul some 
ot the same si/l in a m(;wing 
machine Hea\ \ downpours greeted 
the W niton m southern W'\ timing 
branches had to he laid iheac^ of the 
ear’s wheels W ith the roadway 
washed out, the tiasellers turned 
north near Cii anger into a waste- 
land hor 3(1 hours they weie with- 
out food .md saw no human beings 
They eneuunteied then a lonely 
shepherd, who cooked them a gener- 
ous meal of mutton and canned 
coin and directed them south along 
the (Jreen River to the Union Paci- 
fic tracks again He refused money 
but accepted Dr Jackson’s rifle. 





Sold and serviced throughout India 


STB 9317 


99 



too 


ACROSS AMERICA IN 1903 


They crossed the Continental Di- 
vide and rolled into Rawlins on 
June 23. As the car was being driven 
to the livery stable a connccting-rod 
bolt broke Parts arrived COD 
five days later 

At Laramie on June 30 the travel- 
lers learned that thev had rivals 
Tom Fetch and Manus Krarup had 
started from San Francisco ten days 
earlier Using a new Packard with a 
special low gear for sand and moun- 
tain travel, thev were travelling 
straight east through Nevada and 
Utah. Still another pair was about 
to start in an Oldsmobilc 

The news spurred Jackson and 
Crockei to rise at dawn and, with 
regular four hour turns at the wheel, 
drive as late as possible, often sleep- 
ing alongside the car In Nebraska 
the block and tackle had to be used 
17 times one day and the car trav- 
elled only SIX miles Near Kearne) 
the Winton smashed its front axle 
Crocker htted the broken ends into 
a piece of pipe obtained from a 
farmer and a few miles later a black- 
smith welded the pieces 

It was Sunday, July 12, when the 
Vermont reached Omaha 

Still hampered by rain and mud, 
Jackson and Crocker pushed on to 
Chicago Later, at Elyria, Ohio, a 
procession of cars from the Winton 
factory met the travellers and es- 
corted them into Cleveland. 

Rolling day and night over com- 
paratively good roads now, they ar- 
rived in Rochester, New York, on 
July 23 From Little Falls, under 


the first cloudless skies for weeks, 
they wheeled down the Mohawk 
Valley, crossed the Hudson River 
and turned south on the old Albany 
Post Road at top speed 

At 4 30 a m , Sunday, July 26, the 
Winton ended its trip in New 
York's Fifth Avenue The car had 
covered the last 250 miles in 24 
hours The rival Pickard had only 
reached Nebraska and the Olds- 
mobilc, Colorado 

Dr Jackson had lost over a stone, 
spent the equivalent of dur- 

ing the trip He and Crocker had 
travelled approximatelv b,o(H; miks 
m 63 davs, but had not driven at all 
on 19 of them 

Many could not believe that the 
feat had been accomplished “It is 
well known,” said the Spotting 
T/mc’s, “that tor a car to get through 
certain parts ot Oregon and Ne- 
braska without the assistance of a 
tram is an impossibility ” 

I’he Winton cc;mpany came to 
Jackson’s defence, ofTering a reward 
equal to to “anyone who 

will prove that Dr Jackson used 
other than the one car or that 
he was forced to resort to a tram at 
stage ” The reward was still un- 
claimed when the company stopped 
m. iking cars in 1924, but the dispute 
as to who made the first transcon- 
tinental car trip continued for years 
It was resolved in 1^44, when the 
Smithsonian Institution, Washing- 
ton, put the old Winton on display 
near the aeroplane in which Charles 
Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. 



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on'f I LI IL\R keep \ou fiom 
ha\ing a necessary opciation 
Surgical procedures, ana\sthcsia and 
nursing have been so improved that 
today with normal heart, lungs and 
kidneys your chances of recovery 
are close on loo per cent Infection 
and hemorrhage, the twin threats 
that formerlv hung over the sur- 
geon's shoulder, have been enor- 
mously reduced b\ antibiotics and 
other new advances in medicine 
Let me take you through an op- 
eration step bv step so that there 
will be no mystery about it 
Your surgeon ma\ place >ou in 
the hospital several da\s in advance 
so that a special nutritional and 
biochemical programme can be 
started to build )our body up to its 
greatest strength for the operation 
(This pie-operativc preparation has 


been tound to be a trcmendcjiis aid 
in reducing risk and assuring an 
easier convalescence ) 

There will be visits from your 
own doctor, ward nurses and house 
surgeons They will ask dozens of 
seemingly irrelevant questions An- 
swer them all as best \ou can, even 
when they seem unimportant, they 
may be helpful In turn, ask the doc- 
tors as man> questions as you like 
They understand th.it the more the 
patient knows, the easier it is for 
him to conquer his illness 
The evening before vour big day 
vour anesthetist ma> drop in to dis- 
cuss the anasthetic technique that 
best suits your ailment, and you, as 
an individual In the 1920s the 
an.isihctist had four drugs and two 
mcthc;ds of administering them. To- 
day he has more than 100 drugs and 
numerous techniques Twenty-five 
years ago he used as much as a 
pound of ether for an hour of anaes- 


Dr Frfi) W Rwkis is president of the 
American College of Surgeons 

702 Condensed from Woman's Home Companion 



DON’T BE AFRAID OF AN bPERATlON 


thcsia. Today he normally uses only 
one or two ounces 
New drugs such as Sodium Pen- 
tothal have increasingly replaced 
ether in putting you to sleep These 
are administered painlessly with a 
hypodermic needle Todav, post-op- 
erative nausea occuis in less than 
three per cent ot all patients 
“Won't the pain wake me up^” 
and “What will I say while Pm 
asleep^” are fears that commonly 
disturb a patient The answer to 
the first IS that the anesthesia is not 
just a nap it's a state of uncon- 
sciousness which relaxes the muscles 
and removes all sensation 

As for the second, people don't 
tell secrets while under an anaes- 
thetic In fact, they rarely utter a 
sound and an occasional patient's 
mumbling doesn’t make any sense 
at all 

When you are taken into the 
operating theatre, \ou’ll glide there 
feeling pleasantly relaxed and 
dreaniilv indifferent to the world 
In the theatre the anasthetist will 
be pricking \our arm again and ask- 
ing you to count to ten 

“Six seven eight ” 

By the count of eight \ou will 
probablv be asleep The next thing 
^ou know a voice will be asking, 
“Can you tell me what time it is by 
that clock on the w.dP’’ The voice 
IS that of a nurse in the recovery 
room” Your operation is over 
What happened while )ou slept 
ril tell you 

In ordinary operations two nurses 


103 


tkm; do you thin 

most pcfsK>ti ili 1 

atiog Many 

hoping to ingjratute 
would say: 

might suggest the kheatft 
the anssthenst. Thci&fi: ipif 
which were avoided by the’i 
far-seeing among the 
would always annoy the tu 
who would burst out 
“What nonsense^oo are ail 
Wlwy It’s the patient, o£ coar^4 
'i^hroughoUt the couatry,,-ai^^ 
hour of t^ day, hunditdi$ ^ 
tKxns are taking place, in' ^ , 
the central figure— the 
poitant figure— -IS the 
he 1 $ the only person m the 4' 
who has no part 

and from whom no special 
training or discipline is reouked^ 
Everyone else, from the 
surgeon to the juntor prt^tioi^ i | 
nurse, has a definite job tp do » | 
qualified to do it; and all the^ ] 
tivities are co-otdinated to one fn | 
the cure of the patient’s diseaae. 

i WooJmer in Health ^ 


— Ronald ’ 


Summer 


assist the surgeon One is the theatre 
sister and the other is the assistant 
nurse 

All the instruments used in the 
operation are stciilized by steam 
under tremendous pressure, then ar- 
ranged by the theatre sister on a 
draped instrument table in the or- 
der in which the surgeon will cal 
for them. 

Also on this table in neat rowj 
and piles and tiers go packets O! 
comfifcases, cups and trays anc 




^THE RE ADEEMS DIGEST 


scaled containers of sutures. As she 
works, the theatre sister follows a 
procedure so standardized that any 
other theatre nurse could take over 
in the middle of an operation. 

The assistant nurse, meanwhile, 
has been checking her supplies of 
blood, plasma and intravenous solu- 
tions, clipping your X-rays over a 
light board on the wall She care- 
fully counts gauze pads and sponges 

The anarsthetist arrives Then 
your surgeon and his assistants A 
high instrument stand is rolled up 
over your knees The theatre sister 
stands on a footstool from which 
she commands a view of her instru- 
ment table and the ‘"operating field ” 
To the house surgeon she passes 
soap and antiseptic swabs with 
which he cleanses the area of your 
surgery. Then they cover vour body 
With another large sterile sheet 
which has a hole just large enough 
to expose the operating field 

Your surgeon, masked and gown- 
ed, steps to the table and extends 
his hands The theatre sister passes 
him the scalpel Through the deft 
fingers of the theatre sister, forceps, 
clamps, sponges and strands of sur- 
gical sutures flow back and forth 
to the surgeon's hands The first 
assistant, across the table from him, 
aids by clamping and tying the 
blood vessels and exposing the or- 
gans. 'T^hc house surgeon holds the 
retractors — two long curved strips 
of polished metal which hold the 
incision open. 

Next to your surgeon the key 


figure in the quiet little group is the 
anesthetist. Sitting on a low stool 
beside your head, he keeps a second- 
to-second watch on your pi ogress 
By shifting his mixtures of anes- 
thetic gases he can hold you in a 
light or deep sleep If necessary he 
can delay or halt the operation until 
he has restored your physiological 
condition more nearly to normal 
From bottles suspended on stands 
beside him he has blood, plasma, 
dextrose and other intravenous solu- 
tions read) to flow into your body 

In earlier decades of this century 
surgeons had to be clock- watchers 
The longer the operation, the more 
risky for the patient I'odas “bal- 
anced anasthesia” in which various 
drugs are used in combination with 
blood and supporting fluids lets 
surgeons take their time. 

Before the incision is closed there 
IS always a sponge and pad count 
which must agree with the figure 
written down before the operation 
began When the last suture is in 
place you are rolled to >our own 
room or to the recovery room You 
arc watched closely for signs of 
shock, relapse oi complications Of 
course you still have proper sedation 
against pain 

You should be out of bed in two 
or three days and out of hospital in 
a little more than a week. If you 
will rid your mind of fear about a 
coming operation. I’m willing to 
wager that after it’s all over you 
will agree that your operation wasn’t 
half as bad as you expected. 



A condensation from a forthcoming book G B WALL 

F or more than 50 years the name of Thomas Alva Edison has been 
known round the world as that of America’s most brilliant inventor. 
But Edison was far more than this Few people realize that he was one 
of the most extraordinary human beings ever born His life was more 
dramatic than any of his spectacular inventions 

From Edison’s family, from surviving co-workers and other sources, 
the author has gathered fascinating material previously unpublished, 

"Incandescent Genius” is condensed from a hook to be 
published by Appleton’Century-Crofts, Nete York 







- Incandescent Gent 


iiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiir' 









I ' " ||e has been dedd now for 

H 23 years, yet he is part of 
our lives in a thousand 
U 1. ways 

As we watch television, listen to 
the radio, send a telegram, pound a 
typewriter, speak on the telephone, 
go to the cinema, play a gramo- 

f )hone record or switch on an electric 
ight, we are in debt to his genius 
His name ^ 7 'homas Alva Edison 
Even in an age of giants Edison 
was an outsize and legendary figure 
Thomas Edison was born in 
Milan, Ohio, in 1847, the sixth child 
of Samuel Edison, who opciated a 
small timber mill From the mo- 
ment he began to toddle he was an 
unusual youngster One i>prmg eve- 
ning, when he was five, his parents 
found him in a neighbour’s barn, 
squatting patiently on a nest of 
duck’s eggs He had been there for 
at least ten hours and was blue 
with cold, but he protested bitterly 
as the elders bundled him home. 

“I can hatch ’em I know I can 
hatch 'em,” he said 
Nex. morning at sunrise he was 
back on the nest In this he demon- 
strated the stubboin tenacity that 
was to undeihne his whole career. 
J06 


When he was seven the family 
moved to Port Huron, Michigan, 
where Edison began what was prob- 
ably the briefest formal education in 
history At the end of two months 
the teacher had a talk with his 
mother 

“I’m sorry, but vour bov seems 
definitely backward He simply 
doesn’t want to learn ” 

“Nonsense'” Nancy Edison ex- 
ploded “Tom’s a brilliant boy — I’ll 
teach him myself ” 

Nancy Edison was the grand- 
daughter of Caj)tain Ebenezer 
Elliott of Connecticut, who had 
fought under Washington She was 
an unusual woman and her son had 
an unusual education After teach- 
ing him to read and write, she let 
him follow his own interests Before 
he was ten he wms r^'ading Richard 
Green Parker’s School of Natural 
Philosophy, Gibbon’s Decline and 
Fall of the Rowan Empire, the Dic- 
tionary of Science^, Sears’s The 
Wonders of the World 
The Parker book spurred the 
young mind to experiment Gradu- 
ally the farmhouse cellar became a 
laboratory stocked with hundreds 
of jars and bottles Young Edison 



iNCAnDESCENT GENIUS 


was particularly fascinated by a de- 
scription of Samuel Morse’s recent 
invention. He puzzled over the con- 
struction of wet batteries, the rig- 
ging of telegraph lines, the design of 
instruments and the Morse code. 

By the time he was 12 the young- 
ster decided to strike out for finan- 
cial independence His laboratory 
needed expensive materials, and he 
was hu\ing ntw science books as 
fast as the) appeared So the in- 
ventor went into business He per- 
suaded the Cirand Trunk Railway 
to let him ha\e the right to sell 
sweets and newspapers on its new 
daily tram between Port Huron and 
Detroit 

In Detroit the young news-vendor 
was soon spending his spare time 
in the reading-rooms ot the Young 
Men's Societ\ He had already 
learned to read rapidly and could 
skim through several average-sized 
volumes in an evening, retaining 
the important facts in a prodigious 
memury which seemed to opeiatc 
like a high-speed camera He started 
with “A” and resolved to read every 
title of the library's 16,000 volumes 

His business prospered, and with- 
in three years he had expanded it, 
hired news-bovs for other trains, and 
set up a fresh -fruit -and -vegetable 
business. 

Young Edison made scores of 
friends among the telegraphists, sta- 
tion hands and other railway em- 
ployees along the 63 miles of line 
between Port Huron and Detroit 
He sold them fiesh buttei, fruit and 


vegetables at cost; he gave them 
sweets for their children, and maga- 
zines and newspapers left over from 
the day’s run. In return they helped 
him 

The American Civil War was in 
full blast and Edison’s Detroit 
newspapers sold best when the big 
battles were on One April day of 
i86x the Detroit Ftee Press was full 
of a great battle then raging at 
Shiloh Edison rushed to the depot 
and persuaded the telegraphist to 
wire the headlines to the stations 
along his route He knew friendly 
station .igents would chalk the 
headlines on their bulletin boards. 
Then he asked the Ffee Press's cir- 
culation olfice toi 1, ()(>') papers 

“A thousand I” The clerk couldn’t 
believe it, Edison’s usual draw was 
300 When the voungster told him 
he would have to have the papers 
on credit, the elcik shook his head. 
Edison cKplained his telegraphic 
set-up Finally the clerk took him to 
the circulation manager, who, in 
turn, took him to the editor of the 
Ftee Pje^s 

The editor was impressed by the 
boy’s initiative He scribbled a note: 
“Give this boy all the papers he 
wants ’’ 

Edison started olT with his 1,000 
copies At the first stop, 12 miles 
outside Detroit, wheie he usually 
sold two papers, he w^as met by a 
mob which swept up 40 copies as 
fast as his arms could pump them 
out At the next station he raised 
the price from five to ten cents . 150 



mCANDnCENT GENIUS 


/oS 

copies disappeared After that he 
raised the price to 25 cents and sold 
the entire 1,000 before reaching Port 
Huron 

With the earnings from this prof- 
itable coup young Edison picked up 
a secondhand printing press He set 
It up in the luggage van, and began 
turning out a tabloid-sizcd paper 
called The Weekly Hetulci In this 
sheet, which The Times described 
as “the first newspaper published 
aboard a moving train,” he covered 
all the local news along the route — 
marriages, births, deaths, fights and 
fires The paper sold frcjm the start, 
and the young publisher began 
accepting advertisements 

To increase the He> aid’s appeal, 
Edison added a gossip column which 
he signed “Paul Pry ” In this he re- 
corded So-and-So’s latest romance; 
So-and-So's mabilit) to carry his 
liquor; how and where Scj-and-So 
acquired his present black eye 

Instead of printing names in the 
racier items, the )Oung columnist 
took the naive precaution of label- 
ling his chief characters with their 
initials Since 63 miles of railway is, 
after all, a rather limited area, 
“Paul Pry” quick!) became a much 
sought-after personality Finally one 
citizen, J.H B., caught up with 
“Paul” as he walked along the St 
Clair River, and tossed him fully 
clothed into the drink Edison, who 
by this time had committees of 
angry readers waiting for him at 
practically every station, decided to 
abandon editing and publishing. 


Alongside the hand press young 
Edison had also set up a chemical 
laboratory in which he conducted 
experiments outlined in his scien- 
tific readings One afternoon, as the 
train lurched ovei a rough stretch of 
track, a jar of highly combustible 
material broke on the floor, igniting 
newspapers and other inflammable 
(xlds and ends After the train crew 
had brought the flames under con- 
trol, Edison and his paraphernalia 
were dumped at the first level-cross- 
ing That was the end of his career 
on~the Cirand Trunk system 

WAS also the beginning of a 
new catcer While still a news-ven- 
dor Edison had risked his life to 
snatch a three-year-old boy from 
the path of a train approaching the 
Mount Clemens stop In his grati- 
tude the child’s father, who was the 
Mount Clemen^ telegraphist, offer- 
ed to teach Edison telegraph) The 
young man practised 18 hours a day. 

All cop\ in that pre-t) pewrite’* 
day was handwritten. Character- 
isticilly, Edison began expeament- 
ing with various methods of hand- 
writing in a search tor the speediest 
and most legible form He finally 
struck on a print-Iike, vertical script 
with characters as sharply tormed 
as steel engraving and as legible as 
newspaper type After months of 
practice, he achieved a speed of 55 
words a minute, which was faster 
than any operator could send. 

Edison now became a tramp teleg- 
raphist. His unlimited curiosity, his 






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tremendous desire for knowledge 
about every subject under the sun, 
made him far from a steady em- 
ployee. No matter where he trav- 
elled he continued his chemical and 
electrical experiments, reading 
^through the night and into the 
dawn, catching sleep only when 
weariness overcame him 
In Stratford, Ontario, he found 
an undemanding night job He was, 
however, required to Hash his signal 
in to the main office ever\ hour 
Since this interrupted much-needed 
naps, Edison devised an ingenious 
contraption A small wheel with a 
notched rim was attached to a clock 
and connected with the telegraph 
circuit. Ever\ hour the wheel faith- 
fully revolved, automaticallv Hash- 
ing the signal over the wire The 
system worked perfectly — for a 
while Then one midnight, while 
Edison was sleeping, the Toronto 
chief dispatcher tried to get him on 
the wire shortly after his signal had 
come in That was the end of that 
job. 

For a skilled telegraphist em- 
ployment was no pn^blcm, however, 
and Edison soon commanded a top 
salary of $125 (£ 2 <^) a month Hn 
skill was all the more extraordinary 
because of his deafness Only the 
vibration of the clicking instru- 
rments enabled him to hear mes- 
sages. 

Long before his i8th birthday 
Edison was quite deaf. During his 
Grand Trunk days a guard, trying 
to help him climb aboard a moving 


train, had pulled him through the 
luggcfge van door by his ears As a 
result Edison’s auditory nerves had 
been irreparably damaged. 

Even among the notoriously care- 
free, foot-loose telegraphic frater- 
nity he was considered something 
of an eccentric Wherever he went 
— to the theatre, to the dinner table, 
on the job — he invariably carried a 
pocket notebook in which he jotted 
down drawings and notes for ex- 
periments He wore cracked down- 
at-heel shoes, seedy ink-stained 
clothes, a disreputable slouch hat, 
and in the coldest winters refused 
to spend money for an overcoat, pre- 
ferring tv> squander his entiie pay 
packet on scientific books and ex- 
perimental apparatus 
Sometimes his intense interest in 
telegraphic theory was held against 
him One of the experiments in his 
notebook was that of sending two 
messages in opposite directions sim- 
ultaneously over the same wire. 
One day, while working for the 
Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany in Memphis, he tried 10 ex- 
plain his theory to the Western 
Union chief there, a General Cole- 
man The chief was indignant 
“Look here, Edison,” Coleman 
roared, “any damned fool ought to 
know that a wire can’t be worked 
both ways at the same time*” He 
promptly fired Edison as an irre- 
sponsible character. 

young scientist’s technical 
proficiency as an operator was 



INCANDESCENT GENIUS 


m4 

tested to the utmost when he ap- 
plied for a job in Boston. After one 
look at Edison, with his untrimmed 
mane falling over a threadbare coat, 
his socks showing through the 
cracks in his battered shoes, the 
Western Union operators in Boston 
decided to send him back to the 
haystacks On his first trial night on 
the job they arranged to have the 
fastest sender in New York crackle 
th'-ough press messages at his high- 
est speed 

As Edison sat down at the desk 
they gathered round, grinning at 
one another The New York opera- 
toi started out at a normal pace and 
then gradually increased it, abbrcM 
ating long words which the receiver 
had to transcribe in longhand With- 
out faltering, the applicant covered 
page aftei page with his precise 
script There were no mistakes 
Each sheet looked as though it had 
come off the press The grind con- 
tinued for four incredible hours 

Finally Edison nonchalantly open- 
ed his key and clicked “Send with 
the other foot.” 

The Boston boys gave up After 
examining Edison's faultless copy, 
the Western Union superintendent 
said “He is as good an operator as 
I ever met,” 

It was in a Boston bookshop that 
Edison found his fir«t complete set 
of the works of Michael Faraday 
He had already begun his lifetime 
schedule which allowed him only 
four hours’ sleep out of 24, but that 
night he didn’t close his eyes at all. 


in 

At breakfast he was still reading 
Faraday 

“Aren’t you going to cat?” his 
room-mate asked 

Edison looked up briefly. “Not 
now,” he said “I’ve got too much 
to do and life is pretty short.” 

W orking bv night as a press-wire 
operator, he spent the rest of his 
hours in a Boston machine shop, 
carrving out experiments which 
were alread\ beginning to fill count- 
less notebooks (At his death, Edison 
had filled more than 2,500 ) 

I’hc application for his first patent 
was filed when he was 21 Known 
as the Electrical Vote Recorder, the 
device would enable each legislator 
to register his vote bv push button, 
thus eliminating time-consuming 
roll calls As this would greatly 
hamper “filibustering,” a Congres- 
sional committee before which Edi- 
son demonstrated his revolutionary 
gadget regarded it with considerable 
disfavour 

In that same year Edison finally 
worked out the method for sending 
two simultaneous messages over the 
same wire, and perfected the double 
transmitter Leaving his job as 
operator at Western Union, he spent 
all his funds on a demonstration on 
the telegraph line between Roch- 
ester and New York For some still 
unexplained reason the test was a 
complete failure 

Since the gamble had left him 
absolutely broke, he was unable to 
apply for a patent protecting his in- 
vention. A short time later, another 



INCANDBXENT GEl 4 lUS 


inventor, learning of the double 
transmitter, unscrupulously applied 
for and secured the rights. It was a 
bitter dose for Edison. Deciding a 
change of scener) might bring a 
change of luck, he left Boston for 
New York. 

dison’s first days in Manhattan 
had all the old-fashioned success 
story ingredients. He borrowed the 
money for passage on the night 
boat from Boston, and arrived in 
the big city penniless Through 
an ex-Boston telegraphist he found 
lodging in the boiler-room of the 
Gold Exchange. His camp-bed was 
next to the master transmitter, which 
sent out fluctuating gold prices to 
the Exchange and 300 brokerage 
houses. Edison spent two evenings 
studying the complicated mecha- 
nism, dreaming up improvements. 

On his third morning in the me- 
tropolis, )ust as he was going out to 
resume his )ob hunt, chaos broke 
loose on the floor of the Exchange. 
The master transmitter had creaked 
to a halt. Brokers on the floor and 
hundreds of offices were without 
the day’s opening prices on gold and 
scores of comm^ities. The wheels 
of commerce were jammed. Mes- 
senger boys streamed in from the 
financial district. The operators, un- 
able to find the trouble, were panic- 
stricken. 

Edison clumped back down to 
the basement, took one look at the 
transmitter. 

“Contact spring broken,” he 


pointed out calmly to the manager. 
“It’s fallen between the gears.” 

The manager regarded the cool 
grey-blue eyes, the crumpled suit 
that had been slept m night after 
night, the straggly unbarbered hair 
that fell from the brim of the bat- 
tered felt hat 

“Who the hell are you? Cap you 
fixit^” 

Edison pushed back his hat and 
went to work Within two hours the 
transmitter was clicking smoothly. 
Edison was hired on the spot as 
mechanical superintendent at the 
incredible salary of $300 (£60) a 
month 

But, as usual, he was far from 
content with a pay-roll job — no mat- 
ter what the figure Soon he and 
two friends leased factory space in 
Jersey City and set themselves up 
cs electrical engineers, specializing 
in stock-market tape-machines and 
private telegraph facilities. The con- 
cern had been in business for less 
than six months when General Mar- 
shall Lefferts of the Gold and Stock 
Telegraph Company offered to buy 
them out for $15,000. They ac- 
cepted. Shortly afterwards. General 
Lefferts, who had taken a liking to 
Edison, offered him a job in a 
Newark shop specializing in tape- 
machines. His task would be to im- 
prove and simplify the machines 
Within months the young inventor 
had designed the Edison Universal 
Printer — the basic features of which 
are still in use today. It was much 
simpler and far more reliable than 




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the automatic printers then in use 
among brokerage houses, and (icn- 
eral Lcffcrts was highly enthusiastic. 

One morning he ealled the in- 
ventor into his office “How much 
do you want for your printer^'* he 
asked. 

Edison first thought ot asking 
$3, OCX) Could he dare ask 

“I don’t know, Cicnenil,” he an- 
swered at last, “but would you care 
to make me an oiler 
“All right I low about $40,000^' 
In a dreamlike stupor the 22'\car 
old inventor walked re> the bank 
with the General's cheque 
The cashier shoved it back at him 
“Endorse it,” he ordered 
Edison, in his deatness misun- 
derstood and thought the bank was 
refusing to honour the cheque He 
rushed back to Lefierts Roaring 
with laughter, the General showed 
him how to endorse the cheque At 
the bank the same cashier, iffiicted 
with an odd sense of humour, 
counted out the sum in $5 and Sio 
notes. Edison went home to his 
Newark boarding-house with the 
pockets ot his threadbare clothes 
overflowing He sat up all night to 
guard the unbelievable windfall 
The next morning he opened his 
first banking account 

THE first months of 1870 Edi- 
son put his capital to work by open- 
ing his own factory in Newark, em- 
ploying 18 men. In the beginning 
Edison’s new works were devoted 
chiefly to turning out tape-machines 


May 

for General Leflferts’ company, im- 
pro\ing the mechanism, keeping 
them in repair Soon he had an 
order for $30,000 woith of his own 
Universal Printers, and began ac- 
quiring a stall ot expert workmen, 
some of whom were to stay with 
him foi the rest ot their lives 

Although he was then only 23, 
Edison was known as “the Old 
Man' to his cmplo\ecs There was 
an odd, rafiish maturitv about him 
Hcav\-sct, with sharp giey-blue 
eves beneath heavy lirows and an 
e\tra(jrdinai ily broad torehcad, he 
shuffled round his works m rum- 
pled, grcas(‘' stained clothes, looking 
m(*rc like a wMvward tiarnp than a 
using \oung manufacturer One 
applicant who inspected the place 
and then decided not to work for 
Edison said later, “It stiuek me that 
even one in the shop — including the 
boss — acted sort of crazy ” 

As an employer Edison would 
have been the despair of a union 
organizer He paid top wages, but 
he demanded the same single-mind- 
ed devotion to a job yvhich he dis- 
played himself I le despised a clock- 
watcher, and installed halt a dozen 
clocks about the factory — all set at 
dilTercnt times 

On one occasion, with a huge 
backlog of tape-machine orders, a 
flaw developed in the mechanism 
Edison coll.ired four of his top men, 
locked the door and told them they 
were not to leave until the defect 
was corrected. For bo hours the 
men stayed at their benches, taking 



KiANimscBNr emm 


naps on the floor, eating from 
trays. But at the end of that time 
they had the flaw ironed out, and 
went swinging proudly home, curs- 
ing the Old Man as they went. 

Even in these early days Edison 
was busy with no less than 45 inven- 
tions. He was hard at work on a 
machine which he believed would 
transmit the letters of the alphabet 
Dver telegraph wires when he learn- 
ed that in Milwaukee Christopher 
Sholes was experimenting on a 
wooden model of a machine called 
the ‘‘typewriter.’* Believing this 
might help with the automatic tele- 
graph, Edison invited Sholes to 
Dnng his model to Newark and 
made many suggestions for perfect- 
ing the first typewriter. 

Although Samuel Morse invented 
the telegraph there is no doubt that 
Edison so completely revolutionized 
It that Morse himself would barely 
have recognized it He not only in- 
vented the duplex (sending two 
messages in opposite directions over 
the same wire at the same time) and 
the diplex (two messages in the 
same direction) but he also saved 
Western Union’s neck by devising 
a method of sending which was not 
covered by existing patents. 

Jay Gould, the financier, warring 
against Western Union, had secured 
rights to a basic patent connected 
with the telegraph magnet. Firms 
using the telegraph would be com- 
pelled to pay royalties to Gould. 

William Orton, Western Union 
president, called Edison in. 


“We’ve got to find some way of 
sending without using the electro- 
magnet,” he said, “and I want you 
to get on the job ” 

Edison presently developed an- 
other sending device, called the 
motograph, which substituted a 
small electric motor for the magnet 
used in the standard transmitter. It 
was soon shelved, for once Gould’s 
monopoly on sending instruments 
was broken he lost interest in pro- 
tecting his patent, and Western 
Union blandly continued to use 
the standard instruments. But Edi- 
son was paid $100,000 for the in- 
vention 

The mere accumulation of money 
for Its own sake meant nothing to 
Edison The $40,000 he had been 
paid by General Lefferts went in a 
few months equipment for his 
Newark factory Conscious of his 
free-handed spending methods, he 
asked Western Union to pay the 
$100,000 for the motograph rights 
in instalments of $6,000 for 17 
years. But even with this arrange- 
ment, he was usually hard up for 
immediate cash; he could never say 
no to a friend in need 

Christmas Da\, 1871, Edi- 
son married Mary Stilwcll of New- 
ark, a charming 18- year-old girl 
who taught m the Newark Sunday 
School and worked in one of his 
factories. A few hours after the cere- 
mony he excused himself from the 
wedding party and hustled back to 
work “foi a few minutes.” About 



IfkANDBSCmi' GENIUS 


tt 6 

midnight his best man found him 
up to his ears in experiments 
“You’d better come home, Tom,” 
he advised. 

“I’ve got an awful lot of work to 
do,” Edison replied. 

“But you just got married today,” 
the other pointed out reproachfully, 
“and Mary’s waiting to go to Boston 
on her honeymoon ” 

Edison gradually emerged from 
his cocoon of concentration and 
banged his desk “That’s right > ” he 
cried “I did get married today*” 
Despite this unpromising start, 
the marriage was a happy and re- 
warding one. 

Edison felt that rents in Newark 
were too high and in 1876 he broke 
ground for a new laboratory, at 
Menlo Park, New Jersey, 25 miles 
from New York That Menlo Park 
laboratory, every detail of which he 
designed himself, was soon to be- 
come world-famous. 

The year it was built. Western 
Union pressed Edison to improve 
the telephone, which Alexander 
Graham Bell had just patented, and 
on which Edison had already done 
considerable experimental work. 

As a practical commercial device, 
the Bell instrument was limited, A 
clumsy, pear-shaped affair, it was 
held to the mouth for speaking and 
then shifted to the ear for listening. 
Conversation, even over short dis- 
tances, was difficult because of hiss- 
ing and static from the magneto. 
After two years of constant, gruel- 
ling experiments (during which he 


incidentally developed and patented 
a forerunner of the modern micro- 
phone), Edison finally perfected the 
carbon telephone transmitter Suc- 
cessful tests were held over 140 miles 
of wire Articulation was distinct 
and the volume of sound several 
times that of the magneto-type tele- 
phone Western Union promptly 
bought the rights foi $100,000 “Bell 
may have been the first to invent 
tlie telephone,” an observer wrote, 
“but it was Edison who made it pos- 
sible to hear something on it.” 

It was Edison’s invention of the 
gramophone, however, which first 
stamped him as a genius in the pub- 
lic mind 

The first machine that talked can 
be attributed to Edison’s acute pow- 
ers of observation and deduction 
rather than to any set series of ex- 
periments He was tinkering one 
summer day in 1877 his “au- 
tomatic telegraph repeater,” de- 
signed to record telegraph messages 
on chemically treated paper. This 
instrument had a metal point which 
passed in and out of a senes of in- 
dentations on a whirling paper disk. 
By accident, Edison set the disk to 
spinning at high speed. He noticed 
a whining sound which seemed to 
rise and fall in direct relation to the 
indentations on the disk. Fascinated, 
he lowered the speed, then tried it 
again at high speed, this time sub- 
stituting a small diaphragm with a 
pin attached for the repeater’s metal 
point. The volume of the strange 
sound was much greater. 



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imAmBSCENt GEUJUS , V4?B 


At midnight he went to his desk 
and began a crude sketch. It speci- 
fied a metal cylinder with spiral 
grooves, mounted on a long shaft in 
such a way that it could be spun by 
a crank A wooden telephone-trans- 
mitter case, fitted with a diaphragm 
with a blunt pm in its centre, was 
to be attached to a metal arm 
Next morning he called in one of 
his men, an expert Swiss craftsman 
named John Krucsi, who had a 
knack for translating Edison’s 
roughest sketches into finished ma- 
chines As usual, Edison jotted 
down the estimated cost of the 
materials, the workman being al- 
lowed to keep an\ saving between 
actual cost and the orginal estimate 
In this case the figure was $i8 

Hi ) 

Kruesi puzzled over the sketch 
Most of the devices he worked on 
were electrical, this had no wires, 
no coils, no magnets 
“What’s It for, boss^“ he asked 
“Don’t seem to make sense ’’ 
Edison, who liked a touch of 
mystery, waved him away with his 
cigar “You 11 see when you bring it 
back I think you’ll be surprised ’’ 
As he worked on the machine, 
Kiuesi tried to puzzle it out Other 
workmen watched ovei his shoul- 
der, hazarding guesses No one was 
even close When the Swiss brought 
the finished gadget to Edison, a 
curious group gathered round 
‘'All right, boss,’’ said Kruesi, 
“there she is Now, what’s she for 
Edison shifted his cigar in his 


mouth. “This machine must talki 
Kruesi Think it wilP’’ 

Kruesi was startled. The others 
stopped smiling One of the men 
behind Edison tapped his brow sig- 
nificantly and shook his head The 
Old Man had always been a trifle on 
the queer side Was he now defin- 
itely breaking from overwork? 

There was pity on their faces as 
they watched the serious, young 
Old Man carefully wrap a sheet of 
tinfoil round the cylinder At the 
first turn or the crank, the pinpoint 
ripped across the foil The screech- 
ing sound jarred the nerves of the 
watchers And Edison’s intent look 
frightened them 

He patiently replaced the torn 
foil with another sheet, this time 
firmly fastening the ends together 
with glue He placed the needle at 
the starting position, picked up the 
long mouthpiece and began turning 
the crank, reciting in a loud voice : 

“Mary had a little lamb, 

Its fleece was white as snow . .“ 
when he finished the verse Edi- 
son calmly replaced the needle at 
the starting point, and again began 
turning the crank 
Suddenly his voice began eerily 
arising from the spinning cylinder. 
'*Mary had a little lamb . 

Except for the echoing voice, the 
room was quite silent The work- 
men, their hearts pounding, thcif 
palms sweating, literally held their 
breath Several instinctively made 
the sign of the cross. Even Edisofi^ 
was a little frightened. The miradt! 



mCAmESCENT (TENmS 


of the gramophone’s birth had been 
achieved 

For the first time in the history of 
the U S Patent Office there were 
no prior claims to an\ device even 
remotely resembling it The first of 
several patents protecting the inven- 
tion was granted at once The crude 
first machine was gradually trans- 
formed b\ Edison and others into a 
more finished instrument A circu- 
lar plate, revolved bv clockwork, re- 
placed the cylinder and hand crank 
The familiar mcg.iphone increased 
the sound volume 

The imagination cjf peoples everv- 
where was captured b) this un- 
earthly machine that could actuallv 
store and reprc^duce the human 
voice Millions of words about the 
inventor were cabled all over the 
world The name of Thomas Edi- 
son became perhaps better known 
than that of an\ other liMng man 
He was then 31 His shv manner 
isms, colourful speech, sloppy dress 
and complete lack of pretension ap 
pealed to the press He was intc r 
viewed on every possible subject, 
and fantastic stories circulated about 
him Through a chance newspaper 
caption he became known as “The 
Wizard of Menlo Park,” a man 
W'ho could produce miracles at will 
This name, which pictured an 
effortless sorcery, always irritated 
Edison As his son remarks wryly 
“No man ever worked harder to be 
a wizard “ 

The gramophone remained one of 
Edison’s favourite inventions He 


continued to improve it all his life, 
ultimately taking out more than 80 
patents on it This lasting interest, 
unusual for Edison, was highly 
lucrative By 1910 the annual sale 
of gramophones and records had 
reached $7,000,000, and even after 
his gramophone patents expired the 
sale of records continued to give 
him 1 substantial income 
Edison’s deafness, far from ham- 
pering his work on the gramophone, 
aLtuallv may have helped him to 
perfect its acoustics He had a trick 
ot sinling his teeth into the ma- 
chine's wood flame, thus detecting 
overtones and flaws inaudible to 
an V one with normal hearing He 
onct clnrncd that a woi Id famous 
vHiiinist went ofl kev .it a certain 
point on one of his recordings The 
artist argued that this was impos- 
sible PLdison played the record for 
him with a special speaker mega- 
phone which greatly increased the 
volume When the recording reached 
the disputed passage, there was a 
slight ofT-key wavering The artist 
promptly fainted 

ms early ^os with 157 pat- 
ents already to his credit and 78 
pending in Washington, Edison fol- 
lowed .1 tant.istic, steady work-pat- 
tein Embarked on a “campaign” — 
his phrase for intensive icsearch — 
he frequently kept going for three 
or four days and nights before al 
lowing himself to go to bed He had, 
however, a remarkable facility for 
taking a restorative “forty winks ” 







r22 


mCANDESdENT (SBNIUS 


“Even amid the most exciting 
work,” a friend once observed, “the 
Old Man could turn a switch, relax 
completely and fall asleep. Fifteen 
minutes later he’d wake up a new 
man ” 

In 1878 Edison began work on 
the incandescent light He started, 
as usual, by making an exhaustive 
review of what others had done, 
reading every available scientific 
paper He then stripped for his 
“campaign ” It was to prove stu- 
pendous. Of the 2,500 300-pagc note- 
books preserved today by the Edison 
Foundation, more than 200 are con- 
cerned with electne-hght experi- 
ments These notes were the basis 
for one of the most astonishing feats 
of inventive and industrial pioneer- 
ing ever performed 

In five years’ time, although 
electrical engineering was then in 
Its infancy and everything had to 
be worked out almost from scratch, 
Edison built a full-blown prototype 
of the electric-lighting industi y and 
established it as a practical public 
service He not only developed the 
electric light, as well as generators, 
dynamos, meteis and techniques 
of installation, but in order to give 
electricity its first large-scale test 
he also wired a square mile of New 
York City. It was a breath-taking 
accomplishment Behind it was an 
infinitely painstaking and systematic 
approach to the problem As a friend 
■said, “Edison’s greatest ‘invention’ 
was organized research.” 

When Edison first tackled in- 


candescent lighting, he entered a 
virtually unexplored scientific pla- 
teau In 1841 a British patent had 
been granted on a lamp consisting 
of two platinum coils with powdered 
charcoal bridging the gap between 
them When the current was 
switched on, the charcoal glowed 
An American had patented a light 
in which platinum strips themselves 
glowed when current flowed into 
them, and there was also the arc 
light But all these had proved unre- 
liable, expensive to operate, and far 
too cumbersome for general use 
In his search for a more effective 
light Edison first tried winding 
platinum wire round the stem of an 
ordinary clay pipe He noticed 
that after the platinum had been 
heated several times bv electric 
current it became much harder 
and could stand higher tempera- 
tures Apparently heating expelled 
gases from the platinum, causing 
It to become more dense Reasoning 
that still more gases could be driven 
out in a vacuum, and that the 
platinum would become still harder 
and give more intense light, he 
tiled passing a current through it 
while Its glass enclosure was con- 
nected to the vacuum pump The 
light was amazingly brighter 
Edison thereupon turned to the 
problem of maintaining a lasting 
vacuum in a lamp Since no suitable 
glass-forming machine then existed, 
he employed a skilled glass blower 
who laboriously shaped the first ex- 
perimental bulbs by hand and sealed 



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INC.4NDESCENT GENIUS 


124 

them off while they were still con- 
nected to the vacuum pump 

The vacuum theory was proved, 
but Edison finallv decided that 
a platinum filament was too com- 
plicated and expensive, and that 
It consumed too miuh energy for 
the light It gave He proceedctl to 
try — and discard — other r ire metals 
rhodium, ruthenium, titanium, zir- 
conium, barium All proved un- 
satisfactorv 

Nevertheless, when news of what 
Edison was doing reached the press. 
It caused a near-collapse (jf gas 
shares Shares in the Chartered C^as 
Compinv of London, for example, 
depreeiatcd by several hundred 
thousand pounds 

Edison’s experiments were cost- 
ing thousands of dollars He was 
being financed by the Edison Elec- 
tric Light C.ornpanv, which had 
been formed with the idea of event- 
ually setting up a utility service to 
compete with gas Capitalized at 
$300,000, it had at fir^t turned over 
$50,000 to the inventor When he 
ran through this without positive 
results the shareholders became rest- 
less, and only reluctantly raised 
another $50,000 for h*m But Edi- 
son was m.iking progress As he 
continued the search for a suitable 
filament, his genius was working 
out every angle of the electric-light- 
ing system from a revolutionary 
dynamo to the home meter, from 
switches to protective fuses Every- 
thing was going well except the 


One midnight as he sat in his 
laborator> the answer came to him. 
Since heav) carbon burners had 
not stood up, why not try a slender 
carbonized filament which was al- 
most threadlike^ Pursuing this 
thought, Edison turned from plati- 
num, rarest of metals, to one of 
man’s homeliest commodities — cot- 
ton sewing thread 
The experiments were madden- 
ing Edison ordered the threads to 
be packed with powdered carbon, 
baked in earthenware crucibles, tlicn 
slowK cooled One after another 
the delicate threads, less than 1/64 
inch in diameter, crumbled in vaii- 
ous stages of the process But at 
last .1 carboni/cd filament was in- 
stalled in a lamp under vacuum 
When the current was turned on 
It bcg^in to glow with a steady, 
brilliant light Edison and his work- 
ers barelv breathed It worked, but 
how long could this unbelievably 
delicate lilament continue to burn^ 
I’wo hours crept by three 

SIX ten As the brave glow 
held steady against the dawn, Edi- 
son threw himself down on a camp 
bed for his first sleep for more than 
60 hours Assistants took over 
From all over the laboratory and 
machine shops workers came to 
watch As the hours piled up into 
the 30s, keyed-up workmen grinned, 
pounded each other happily After 
40 hours, Edison characteristically 
began experimenting with increased 
voltage The overloaded filament 
finally flared and burned out. 



...for positive 

durabiliti5... 


\ ..."for iM+flrior or'' 
exterior usfi... 


..iM industry 
or tUe iiokvie.. 



.itiere is no doubt 

about it that ... A V .'• >> J THegYUTHSU 


/ KHOHif! THE ilAlSMER IS ... ' 
THE SYMTHinC ErtAMBL ^ 
BlfiTF... / 



SHALIHAR PAINT, COLOUR A VARNISH COMPANY, LIMITED 

CALCUn^ • BOMBAY • MADRAS • NEWDELHI • KANPUR 


/ 25 . 



- ' 1 *» , ^ \ ‘ ‘ I *■ ^>*1 V 

is a em&sA a ^A^mcme^ P 



Accuiatt wrist v\«it(h(s wr rc one < v( r\ 
rare ind((d People liuuhcd at the mere 
idea of a wrist wat< h that would kup 
time as pe rfe ( th as a Clhtonoiiit tt r 

What a diffe r< n( < tod.i\ ’ So mam 
things depend on ( x.u l timum, th U 
wrist w^at( h( s must jiosses e eunplrte 
areuratv And the w ete hmake r s skill 
ensures that the tiniest, d untie wnsl 
wate h (an be t (’hronomelei ,\en 
though It ma\ look more ornmientil 
than use fill 

Aeeortbni; to pie sent Swiss n I'lila- 
tions, Swiss watches tan be entitled 


C'hror ome te rs only >f this pass riK;e)roiis 
14-da laborators te sts at ofht lal lestine 
St«itio s Manufat tun rs can no lomte i 
test tl e ir watc he in their own laborato- 
h) call the n (’hionome fe is 
Rol howexe , have .ilwaxs had then 
Watch s tested ftic i.ilb After these' 
ritific irm>ar lal tests. Role nark 
each watch ofhe ll\ ( e rtihe d C'hrorio- 
meter’ on the dal 

I c>r mime dir ide ntihe .ition, the 
famous Role x Re d vSe al is attae he d A ou 
nirix be sure th.it i watch Vitarir i» the 
Role \ Seal is a tiue C hionorne te.i 


t 


ROLEX 


/Ae Afoi/e/ 

hsutfl by Role \ Wateh Co i Eastern) Ltd, Bombay 


J26 


R 9519 



imANDmCJim G£N!VS ny 


DisoN next tried filaments of 
carbonized cardboard. They were 
even more successful The life of 
the lamp was gradually increased 
to 170 hours A public demonstra- 
tion on Ntw Year’s Eve, 1879, 
when all Menlo Park was brilliantly 
lighted with the new lamps, drew 
3,000 people The spectacle created 
a profound impression. Immediately 
thereafter gas shares hit a new low 
But Fdisori knew he must have 
something tougher, more enduring 
than a cardboard filament if the 
elcctnc lamp was to be commer- 
ciallv successful One morning his 
roving eves rested on a pa^m-leaf 
fan, and h( noticed the thin strips 
of Ihimboo which bound its outer 
edges At once he had the bamboo 
shredded into fil.iments and car- 
iKini/C-d li proved fai superior to 
an\ thing vet tried 
That experiment began a woilel- 
wide search for the best variety of 
bamboo Altogether Edison tested 
some ^),(K)o varieties of plants and 
vegetable fibres before selecting a 
bamboo grown specially for him in 
Japan The carbon i/cd bamboo fila- 
ment was used for more than ten 
years, being supplanted first In 
“squirted cellulose," and then b\ 
tungsten, which is in use today 
Edison had realized that if his 
light w.is to be practical for home 
illumination each lamp must be 
able to be switched on and ofT inde- 
pendently Arc lights then burned 
“in senes’* — current flowed through 
all the lamps If one lamp went 


out, all the others failed, as do 
certain types of Christmas-tree lights 
today He had therefore perfected 
a “multiple circuit" which allowed 
each lamp to burn independently, 
and had developed a satisfactory 
generator to produce steady curient. 

Not only were all generators then 
m use designed for the arc-light 
“senes' circuit but they were in- 
efficient, delivering less than half 
the energy they generated, the rest 
being lost in the W'liuhngs In 1879, 
when bdison announcecl a 1 evolu- 
tional generator that was 90 per 
cent (fficKut, the scientific world 
lefused to licheve it But many 
features ol Edison’s invention are 
still used in generators today 

Edison was now ready to build a 
test lighting system loi that crucial 
squaic mile in lower New York 
Newspapers hooted when he out- 
lined his plans for puttnig wires 
underground in conduits New York 
streets were then a maze of tele- 
graph and telephone wires overhead. 
Whoever heard of putting electric 
wires undergrouneM Didn’t the 
man know they might get wet and 
leak, and electrocute pedestrians 
right and Icft^ hdison calmly went 
ahead with his plans, perfecting 
new tvpes of inMilation to elo the 
)ob 

When the laving of the first 
street mams began in July 1881, 
skilled electrical we^rkers were 
scarce So Edison opened a training 
sehoe)l, using his laboratory assist- 
.ints as instructors He even put 




mCANDmCSNT GENIUS 


T2$ 

together a textbook, with simple 
sketches showing the proper way to 
connect dynamos, to wire houses, to 
install fuses By the end of the sum- 
mer he had 1,500 men tearing 
up streets, laying conduits, wiring 
buildings He set up a special fac- 
tory to manufacture heavy dynamo 
parts, opened one plant to make 
electric lamps, and another to turn 
out switches, meters, fixtures, sock- 
ets — all the gadgets necessary to this 
infant industry 

During the incandcscent-lamp 
experiments there had been much 
scepticism about Edison’s lighting 
project, and ncwsp<iper comment 
had often been sarcastic and be 
littling Now the tide of public 
confidence turned The Edison 
Company’s headejuarters at 65 F'lfth 
Avenue became a nightly rendez- 
vous for the city’s civic and business 
leaders Lawyers, bankers, actors, 
financiers, doctors, opera stai s 
buzzed round the “electric light” 
display like children round a toy 
counter They tentatively touched 
the glowing bulbs, poked at connec- 
tions, asked countless questions 

But there was much “selling” of 
the idea yet to be done and, at the 
directors’ insistence, Edison began 
speaking at banquets, cultivating 
the good will of influential citizens 
who might become important share- 
holders. At one such banquet the 
millionaire, W. H. Vanderbilt, per- 
suaded Edison to install a private 
dynamo in his new home When 
the apparatus was tested, a wire in 


the picture gallery shorted and set 
fire to the silk-cloth decorations. 
Mrs Vanderbilt went into hysterics 
and refused to live in the place 
until the dynamo had been ripped 
out. Although Vanderbilt became 
a shareholder in the Edison Co , the 
Vanderbilts’ house continued to use 
gas for many years 

INVENTOR detested making 
and listening to after - dinner 
speeches, and he always left the 
banquet room at the earliest possible 
moment, te.irmg off his collar and 
tie as he went Night workers be- 
came accustomed to the sight of the 
Old Man in h»s frock coat, handker- 
chief round lus neck, crawling out 
of trenches or supervising installa- 
tions in the power-house he had 
built in Pearl Street 

Building that first electric- light- 
ing system was, Edison later said, 
“the greatest adventure c^f my life.” 
He threw everything into the gam- 
ble his reputation, his money, the 
faith of his friends, the trust of 
the public Realizing that he would 
have to make his product cheaper 
and more efficient than gas — for 
the powerful gas trust then had a 
monopoly on lighting — he made 
the installations for prospective elec- 
tric customers without charge, and 
asked no deposit on the meter 
The user would pay the mietcred 
charge only if the lighting system 
worked satisfactorily Edison per- 
sonally guaranteed that the bills 
would be lower than those for gas 1 




A proud addition to Bombay’s attractive skyline is Standard- Vacuum’s new 
office, one of the most modern and handsome buildings in Asia Specially 
designed to ensure maximum employee comfort, the seven-stoned office is 
completely air-conditioned and combines many architectural innovations 

Outstanding features are its sun-control louvres, suspended ceilings covered 
with ‘audicane’, asphalt tile flooring, and Training Room complete with projection 
screen and light and sound control 


729 


mdAmnsCstif orntti 


As the time for the first test 
approached, the eyes of the whole 
world were fastened on that single 
square mile of lower New York. 
Great things were expected and 
stock in the Edison Co had soared 
from $100 to $3,500 a share If 
Edison failed, it would be the most- 
publicized failure in history 
On Monday, September 4, 1882, 
the new lighting system was pro- 
nounced ready In the power house, 
firemen stoked the glowing coals, 
steam hissed up from the boilers 
into the engines of the mighty 
jumbo generators Faster and faster 
the dynamos whirred Edison leach- 
cd for the master switch to send the 
mysterious force surging over 80,000 
lineal feet of underground wiring 
He was, he admitted later, sobered 
by the “great responsibility oi turn- 
ing a mighty power loose under the 
streets and buildings of New' York “ 
There was no hitch. When he pulled 
the switch, the windows of the cho- 
sen district suddenly sprang to life 
“It was a light,” wrote the New 
York Times, “that a man could 
use for hours without the con- 
sciousness of having any artificial 
light about him Soft, mellow and 
grateful to the eye, it seemed almf)sr 
like daylight without a particle 
of flicker and with scarcely any 
heat to make the head ache ” 
Edison’s great gamble had been 
vindicated. 

VERY new product, Edison be- 
lieved, should be sold as cheaply 


as possible, since a wide profit 
margin invited competition. With 
a wary eye to the future, therefore, 
he now began selling his incandes- 
cent lamps at 40 cents apiece, 
though they cost him $i 30 to 
make. In time, and with consider- 
able difficulty, he brought the pro- 
duction cost down to 37 cents He 
then sold his holdings in the lamp 
works for about a million dollars to 
a firm which was later to become 
the General Electric Co Although 
Edison was an astute businessman, 
he loathed the book-keeping details 
of routine profit-taking As soon as 
a project was operating successfully 
his interest m it usually waned 
Two )ears after he had estab- 
lished his pioneer electnc-lighting 
system, Edison’s wife, Mary, died 
suddenly of typhoid fever (jrief- 
stricken, Edison closed his home 
and laboratory at Menlo Park and 
sent his three children to live with 
his wife’s mother in New York His 
home life had been very happy 
Now more than ever he plunged 
into all-consuming work, trying to 
drown his memories 
There was no lack of plans In his 
30s his genius flared in a do 7 cn di- 
rections Even during his struggle 
for the electric light, he had taken 
time to perfect and patent a method 
of preserving fruit under vacuum 
And his notebooks of that period 
carried sketches of what is now 
known as the helicopter — which 
Edison was to advocate as the safest, 
most useful form of air transport. 





'tp mCANDESCEflT GSmVS 

7 


K At Menlo Park he had started 
l^ration of America’s first passen- 
electric railway. He had sketched 
|:dans for a cotton harvester, an elec- 
tric sewing machine, an electric lift, 
% new kind of snow-removal ma- 
chine. At times the directors of 
the Edison Electric Light Co. were 
]pained to read advertisements for 
Edison’s Talking Doll and Edison’s 
Neuralgia Cure Such things, they 
said, were undignified and might 
harm the sale of shares But Edison 
found It difficult to control his brain 
children. 

In his ever-restless ranging it is 
Startling to observe how near he 
came to breaking through the bar- 
rier of the unknown and into the 
age of present-day electronics As 
early as 1875 he discovered a unique 
electrical phenomenon which he 
called “etheric force” (later recog- 
nized as being caused by electric 
waves in free space) He experi- 
mented with It, tlien was diverted 
to other quests He gave his find- 
ings to Marconi at a time when that 
scientist was racing With others to 
perfect the wireless Marconi was 
lastingly grateful for Edison's help 
While working to reduce the 

E reduction costs of his incandescent 
mps, Edison made another revolu- 
tionary discovery which he called 
the “Edison Effect ” He developed 
an Edison Effect bulb which en- 
abled him to control the flow of 
current in an unprecedented way, 
and soon patented a method of 
^sing It for wireless-induction tele- 


graphy. His wireless was effective 
only over short distances, but was 
actually used for a time in operating 
the Lehigh Valley Railroad 
Nearly half a century later one of 
the Edison Effect bulbs was con- 
nected to a radio set It worked as 
well as the present-day radio valve ! 
Without realizing it, Edison had 
discovered the radio rectifier valve 
He had invented the microphone as 
a by-product of his work on the 
telephone transmitter, and now he 
was on the very threshold of high- 
frequency radio transmission Yet 
he turned away to other things, 
allowing other men to develop his 
discoveries. 

ITER he had worked himself 
out of the grief caused by his wife’s 
death, Edison began to stek oc- 
casional social relaxation. He ac- 
cepted a few dinner invitations and 
with his young daughter, Dot, 
attended operas and concerts, later 
picking out the tunes on the piano 
— on which he was a novice but a 
potentially great performer 

One evening in 1885, after a 
dinner at a friend’s house, one of 
the guests, a handsome brunette 
of 20, sat down at the piano and 
began playing and singing 
“1 was, of course, struck by her 
great beauty,” Edison later told a 
friend, “but what impressed me 
most was her air of confidence. I 
thought It a considerable accom- 

O 

plishment that anyone could play 
so badly and carry it off so well!” 



**DC” meanfc Douglab huiUlu ol tin I unoiu IH aru) I)( tlx ultr vinoilt id DC 6 and 

I)l -()H tlx ixw l)( -7 Next iinx i,(t hx iii \sk lt*i ifsd s on 1 (Itpriidable Douglas, 

Entrance to anywhere 

In only /p Jlying hours you can be half a world away 

Y ou rRwri IASI in the Doui’l.is l)C!-baiui l)C-bB And on short 
tups (ji loiiL,, \ on I idc 111 p( 1 It n conilorl hn>h abiA c llir weather 
J hese 1)1L>, Inxuiious aiilineis ait insulait d iinst sound and vibra- 
tion an -conditunied prcssuii/ed <ill loi voiii lelaxation. 
^'ou .11 1 ive lefieshed, and you sa\ c so nuu h Unit bs DC-b oi I)C-6B’ 

Twice as many people fly 

Dowms 

as all other airplanes combined 



^tNCAm>ESCENT GENIUS 


^34 

But the meeting with Mina 
Miller that evening ended Edison’s 
loneliness He fell completely in 
love with her and the romance was 
to cnduic for the rest of their lives. 

Edison and Miss Miller were 
married in 1886, when he was 3q 
His bride was the daughter of 
Lewis Miller, an inventor and 
manufacturer. Well educated and 
quiet, she was the perfect comple- 
ment to the shy, boyish “Old Man.” 
To get round his deafness, he taught 
her the Morse code — indeed, he pro- 
posed to her in Morse At the 
theatre she would relay the dia- 
logue to him with her finger-tips, 
on social occasions she would tap 
out intimate endearments despite the 
rescnce of guests In the spacious 
ome he purchased in Llewellyn 
Park, New Jersey, they were to 
know much happiness 
The difference in ages apparently 
meant nothing To his young wife, 
Edison was the eternal boy and as 
careless as a boy about dress and ap- 
pearance He was as likely to come 
down to a formal dinner with his 
hair uncombed and minus a tic as 
he was to neglect his meals en- 
tirely In an attempt to improve his 
slovenly appearance, she took to 
hiding his coat Before leaving the 
house Edison had to find her in 
order to get it This gave his wife a 
chance to make him shave, comb 
his hair or put on a clean shirt 
Although he had got into the 
iiabit of going for days without 
solid food, or even thinking about 


It, Mina Edison insisted that he 
have at least one hot meal a day. If 
he was stubbornly embarked on a 
“campaign” she would lay a meal 
on a tray and take it down to the 
laboratory personally to sec that it 
was eaten Often she made him a 
snack, sending it to his office with 
the note “Would love to see you 
some time this week ” 

In near-by West Orange Edison 
now built a new laboratory and 
workshop, which he continued to 
expand over the years Its research 
facilities were lavish, and he left a 
standing order with all the world’s 
great chemical firms to forward to 
him a sample jf each new product 
as <oon as it was manufactured 
Ciraduallv he acquired one ot the 
mr)st extensive collections of scien- 
tific materials and literature in 
America With his lovely Mma cap 
ablv taking over management of the 
house and the three children, his 
working conditions were ideal 

NE drowsy summer afternoon 
in 1887 a friend brought Edison a 
whimsical gift It w^as “The Wheel 
of Life,” a simple mechanical toy 
One peeped through a slot, spun 
the wheel, and a senes of pictures 
sprang into action, giving the illu- 
sion (^f motion The device was 
familiar to millions 

Edison chuckled as he spun the 
wheel and watched the antics of a 
dancing bear Presently his laughter 
faded and he regarded the gadget 
with a speculative eye Why, he 





Your children’s happy smiles the fi lends 

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day they will be so hard to remember 

Yet you need not forget With an inexpensive 
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capture these precious moments for ever — safe 
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And with low-cost flashbulbs (most ‘ Kodak ’ 
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are as easy as outdoors 

Buy a fine * Kodak ’ camera now — it costs 
you so little, gives you so much » 

Prices Quoted do not include Sales lar 

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your Kodak dealer, and 
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ranf;e on the marketl 



^S5 


LANimSC/SNl UENIUS 


wondered, wouldn’t it be possible to 
obtain action pictures m just this 
very way — a senes of tiny photo- 
graphs reprcKluced at great speed ^ 

Slumping back in his chair, he 
drew out his ever present notebook 
and began sketching These casual 
sketches were Fdison’s liist work on 
the cinema camera that was to 
change the face rif the entertain- 
ment world and create a vast in- 
dustry 

Edison worked for four vears on 
his camera The mechanical prob- 
lems involved minute fractions of 
a second, and gears as delicate as 
watch works Simultaneoiislv he 
worked with Eastman Kodak en- 
gineers, specifying the type of film 
he needed Eastman had recently 
developed a tough, pliable roll him 
which proyed ideal Finall> Edison 
had a camera capable of taking 20 
to 40 exposures a second 

In i88g Ediscni actuailv showed a 
talking picture in his laboratory, 
synchronizing the film with a 
gramophone So all embracing yvcie 
his basic patents that ♦^he film in 
dustrv paid him royalties for many 
years, Edison was the first of the 
film magnates 

In the late gos and early igoos he 
also had a fling at producing. He 
built a large, oblong building, cov- 
ered inside and outside with black 
tar-paper Revolving on a turntable 
device, it moved with the sun, al 
lowing every possible moment of 
daylight to shine through its slide- 
back roof 


In his new role, Edison was all 
over the place, writing comical 
sketches, directing the actors, grind- 
ing the cameras, repairing them 
when they broke down He enjoyed 
It all hugely His first productions 
were fairly crude -]im Corbett, 
heavyweight champion, boxing a 
few rounds, an Italian organ grinder 
cavorting with a mischievous mon- 
key, and the like — but they packed 
the Nickelodeons Later he built a 
$i()0,()0() glass studio in New York, 
and made several full-length pic- 
tures 

Once the film industry was well 
launched, however, Edison turried 
to other challenges Experimenting 
with Roentgen's newly discoyered 
X-ra) , he dey eloped the fluoroscope, 
which he gave, unpatented, to the 
medical profession Concurrently he 
also developed the first flihirescent 
electric lamp 

The 'gos yvere really gay for 
Edison These were lusty, produc- 
tive vears, full of hard w'ork and 
roaring horseplay His marriage 
with Mina brought him three mere 
offspring, and some of his most im- 
portant research was done in the 
family sitting-room with children 
warming over him He had intense 
powers ot concentration Fre- 
quently he sat reading scientific 
journals in any one of the half- 
dozen languages he had taught him- 
self, while the household raced round 
him in a game of hide-and-seek 

In his laboratory Edison fought 
with his men, swore at them and 



■'r' f ’■ 


4^^ 


rhe\ were 






kf//. 




Solid (pold 
sSulmlantial ( a*»( 



IhaltswhN iKlVVaUlK'i ^ 

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even under most dirlieul! eondiiions 
Nor IS sivle negleeied there is a range ol 


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tastes and poekels - and every one 
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Be sure it’s a West I nd W'aleh’ 


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WEST END WiTtll tO BOMBAY AND lALCtlTA 






INC;ANDESCI£NT genius 


I3« 

was sworn back at, fired them on 
Saturday and re-hired them on 
Monday Outrageous practical jokes 
often punctuated the exacting ex- 
periments and marathons of grind- 
ing work 

For \ears some of the old hands 
had been helping themselves to 
Edison’s cigars To stop this pilfer- 
ing, he ordered his cigar salesman 
to send him a box of cigars made 
of horsehair, glue and other smelly 
rubbish ^He was working on an 
extremely ticklish problem at the 
time and promptly forgot about the 
reejuest until the cig.ir salesman 
called again some weeks later 1 hen 
Edison upbraided him for not send- 
ing the trick cigars 
“But I did send them,” the sales- 
man replied, “three weeks ago “ 
Edison, intent on his experiment, 
had smoked the entire box himself 
without realizing it 
Although none of Edison’s later 
inventions were as spectacular to the 
public eye as were his gramophone, 
moving pictures and electric light, 
his prodigality in turning out solidly 
useful inventions was to continue all 
his life So homely and apparently 
commonplace were many of his 
creations that people wondered wh) 
no one had thought of them before 
Lord Kelvin supplied the reason 
“The only answer I can think of is 
that no one else was Edison “ 
Around the turn of the century 
he brought out his Ediphone dictat- 
ing machine, patented an electric 
safety lantern for miners which 


greatly helped to cut down mine 
explosions, and began his search for 
a better storage battery. It took him 
ten years to find the satisfactory 
combination — nickel, iron, alkaline 
solution — but he finally evolved a 
product which still solves the power 
problem in scores of industries. 

“If Edison’s experiments, investi- 
gations and work on the stoiagc 
battcrv were ill h^ had ever done,’’ 
an industrial engineer once said, “I 
should sav he was not only 
notable inventor but also great 
man 




y h\RS rolled on, but the Old 


Man refused to recogni/c their pas- 
sage In his bos his working week le- 
mained as long as ever, and it irked 
him when reporters beg<in inter 
viewing him on his biilhdays 
“It’s a hell of a thing to congratu- 
late a man on,’’ he grumbled, “that 
he IS getting old ’’ 

But the yearly interviev^'s pro 
duced absorbing copy What was the 
secret of his success^ “The ability 
to stick to things ” Wh_it was 
genius^ “I’wo per cent inspiration 
and ()H per cent perspiration ’’ 

Each night, he told reporters, he 
wrote on slips of paper the tasks for 
♦■he day ahead, and then carried 
them to completion “If ev^eryone 
would try it,’’ he said, “it would 
surprise them to sec how much could 
be accomplished in a day.’’ 

Sometimes he spoke tongue-in- 
cheek, as when advocating modera- 
tion in the use of tobacco “Person- 




Most of us are accustomed to thinking of ad- 
vertising as a part of modern commerce And 
so It IS — a practical way of telling Lrge num- 
bers of people about the products that manu- 
facturers have for sale 


But, more and more, governments and 
other organizations are realizing that the 
methods used in advertising to sell 
goods are also efficient means of 
spreading information 

To take just one example in Britain, 
in the last century, diphtheria was a 
com* on, often fatal, disease of child- 
hood Science then found an effective 
anti-toxin for treating the disease 
Doctors gladly used the new remedy, 
and drastically reduced the diphtheria 
death-rate 

Then it w^as discovered that children 
could be immunized against diphtheria, 
so as not to catch it at all * Evidently, if 
every child in the country could be 
immunized against it, the disease itself 
would soon disappear 

Here was a mammoth job * To let 
every mother of young children in the 
country know that immunization was 
available to save them from the nsk 


ol diphtheria , and to 
persuade these mothers 
to have their children 
immunized 

The newspapers, of 
course, published the 
news — but they could 
not repeat it day after day 
Doctors and nurses could not go out 
and tell everybody So the government 
turned to advertising — to tell mothers, 
clearly and simply, w'hat to do, and to 
keep on repeating the message The 
negligible number of diphtheria cases 
now 1 eported each yeai in Britain proves 
that advertising did this job of inform- 
ing and persuading supremely well 
Similai instances could be quoted 
from man> parts of the world Govern- 
ments and other organizations are in- 
creasingl> turning to advertising as a 
means of communication By spreading 
information on health and welfare, and 
also on agricultural and industrial pro- 
duction methods, tney are raising the 
standard of living making healthier 
people who are able to produce more, 
and live fuller and happier lives 

And so It goes on, an endless chain 
of cause and effect — better living foi 
everybody 



INCANDESCENT GENIUS 


140 

ally,” he once told an interviewer, 
‘7 only smoke from ten to 20 agars 
a day The strongest I can get ” 

He believed intense brain work 
was the real secret of health and 
longevity He had little use for 
physical exercise “The only use 
for my body,” he observed, “is to 
carry mv brain mound ” 

He found recreation in Lhanging 
his work pattern After weeks r)n 
one problem, he would turn to an- 
other, and then to anotlur hie 
always had at least half a d(>zcn 
projects going at once He read eon- 
tinuouslv and voluminouslv with a 
photographic memory His daughter 
Madeline can remember her father 
glancing briefly at a ehctionarN 
page, then repeating the contents 
verbatim 

When Edison was 67 a disastrous 
fire wiped out sc\en buildings of his 
great raetorv at West Ormge The 
loss, estimated at $5,000,000, was 
not covered by insurance fUit Edi- 
son was far from discouiaged In- 
deed, the challenge of rebuilding 
seemed to take \ears off his age 
He had the demolition crews at 
work the next morning And with mi 
two weeks the debris had been »'c- 
moved and rebuilding started 

Edison wa^ ntarl\ 70 when Amer 
ica entered the First World War 
At the request of the U S Secre- 
tary of the Nav\, Josephus Daniels, 
he became president of the Na\al 
Consulting Board He developed ap- 
paratus to detect torpedoes, under- 
water searchlights for submarines, 


turbine-powered projectiles and sub- 
marine stabilizers For these and 
other war inventions — more than 40 
altogether — he won the American 
Distinguished Service Medal 
No matter how hard the driving 
[)ace of his working day, Edison 
never lost his relish for ribald 
humour During the war w'hen he 
was working under the greatest 
pressure, he alwa\s asked to see the 
“dispatch case” each morning This 
was a tekgi.iphed round-up of the 
day’s best jokes then going the 
rounds in Washington and New 
\ork EdiscMi spread out the jokes 
and chortled over them before be- 
ginning the da\\ work 
For nearly hall a century famous 
men from all oyer the world sent 
him their latest jokes He methodi 
c*illv filed them all 

DTsoN had a knack of inspir- 
ing others, ci rekindling their cn 
tluisiasm One whom he thus en- 
couraged was Henry Ford The two 
met at an early Edison Co conven- 
tion, where Edison ga\e a talk on 
his new storage battery, which he 
thought would be higliK adaptable 
to the electric .lutomubile The 
electric car, the automobile industry 
had decided, was the coming thing 
But young Ford had other ideas 
He began to tell Edison about his 
sparking plug theories, about a 
cheap petrol engine mounted in an 
inexpensive chassis If he was right, 
the electiic car was doomed before 
It really started But Ford himself 




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INCAMOESCENT cenivs 


was far from certain. Exhaustive ex- 

E cnmentation had left him nearly 
roke, terribly discouraged. 

Edison, then at the peak of his 
fame, listened sympathetically, hand 
cupped to one ear Suddenly his 
clenched fist hanged down on the 
table 

“Young man,” he boomed, “vou 
have It* Keep at it' Electric cars 
must keep near to power stations, 
in order to be able to recharge the 
batteries And the storage battery 
IS too heavy Your cai is self-con- 
tained. Carnes its own power plant 
Keep at it*” 

That consersation revitalized 
Ford’s faith and became literally the 
turning point of his career He 
never forgot it 

Sixteen years younger than Edi- 
son, Ford worshipped the inventor 
On the 50th anniversary of the 
electric lamp he reproduced in 
Dearborn, Michigan, a complete 
historical village commemorating 
Edison’s early life and achieve- 
ments At fantastic expense ht re- 
created the old laboratory at Menlo 
Park complete to the last detail 
Everything was exactly as it had 
been 50 years before 
The Old Man was frankly puz- 
zled He could never understand 
Ford’s interest in history or antiques 
—or, as he termed it, “old )unk ” 
He was always too busy expcri 
menting with the new to be con- 
cerned with the old 
Edison resolutely refused to have 
anything to do with hearing aids 


Actually he considered his deafness 
something of a blessing. In the busi- 
est factory, he could withdraw into 
his almost silent world and, un- 
distracted, achieve the utmost con- 
centration And as for the public 
dinners, which m the lattei years 
of his fame he could not escape . 
One morning he shoved a newspaper 
in front of a startled colleague. 

“Did vou read this rubbish?” he 
demanded, pointing to column after 
column of speeches “V/tll, I was at 
that banquet last night, sal right at 
die speakers’ table and 1 didn’t hear 
a damned word — than! (hid' And 
thev try to tell me I should wear a 
hearing aid *” 

Edison’s obviously ovcrsi/cd brain 
cells were coupled with a remark- 
abl\ sturdy physique which enabled 
him to withstand the teirific pres- 
sures to which he submitted himself 
for most of his 84 years His grand- 
father had lived to 104, and Edison, 
considering this, regarded himself 
as a comparatively young man even 
after reaching 70 

At 75 Edison cut his working day 
to t6 hours At 80 he brought out 
his first long-playing gramophone 
record For 38 cents the buyer re- 
ceived 40 minutes of music 

“I have enough ideas,” he told 
interviewers, “to keep the labora- 
tories busy for years ” 

Indeed, his prodigality of ideas 
was unprecedented During his life- 
time Edison was granted the aston- 
ishing total of 1,097 patents by the 
U S Patent Office. 





INCANDESCENT GENIUS 


^"^3# EATURE WRITERS frequently 
sought Edison’s views on God and 
religion. 

“After years of watching the pro- 
cesses of nature,” Edison told them, 
“I cannot doubt the existence of a 
Supreme Intelligence. The existence 
of such a God can, to my mind, 
almost be proved from chemistry ” 

But even on a subject such as 
this, his sense of humour refused to 
he dormant When a clergyman 
asked whether his church should in- 
vest in lightning conductors, Edison 
drawled “Bv all means, Provi- 
dence is apt to be absent-minded ” 

Up to the very week of his death 
Edison continued the process of 
self-education which began on the 
da) that his mother took him from 
school at seven Even on his death- 
bed, he was an avid reader of 


books on a wide variety of subjects. 

His curiosity was the despair of 
his physicians He inquired into the 
whys and wherefores of his own 
sickness, and kept his own chart of 
his condition He argued with them 
over medicines and drugs. Blood 
tests intrigued him, and he insisted 
on examining the slides and micro- 
scopes Death never &ad a more 
wide-eyed, observant victim 

Edison began his last Great Ex- 
ploration on October i8, 1931, at 
the age of 84 On the night of his 
funeral, in response to President 
Hoover’s proclamation, the lights 
of America were turned off for a 
minute in tribute to the man who 
had lighted them 52 years before By 
a dramatic coincidence the date was 
the anniversary of the lighting of the 
first successful lamp in Mtnlo Park. 


Ringing the Bell 

/^oBEin Cousins, hook editor for Croft Publications m Connecti- 
cut, wanted to put through a trunk call to Dale Carnegie in New 
York He hunted m his Hies and discovered the number on an old 
letterhead of Mr Carnegie's 

The operator announced that Mr C was out of town, but that 
his wife was there and would Mr Cousins speak to her He would 
After the usual pleasantries, Mrs Carnegie asked, “How on earth 
did you track me down herc'^" 

Cousin ,old her about the old letterhead 

“W V ' said Mrs Carnegie, “Boulvcvard 8-1230 was our number 
all right, but wc discontinued it exactly nine years ago It was later 
taken over by a beauty shop — and that’s where I am now, having 
my n'*ir washed -—Bennett Cerf m The Saturday Revieu) 

to frierij at an evening party “Pm miserable I've got 
on my sitting-doWii shoes and my standing-up girdle ” —Dallas Ncus 



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{Continued jrom mttde front com) 

the generosity of the British travelling 
public to leave each month’s issue 
lying about in one of our railway 
carriages for me to read* I placed an 
order with my newsagent that morn- 
ing, and you can be sure that my 
copies of the Digest pass along the 
line for others to enjoy. 

Not long ago, the first copy I had 
ever seen came back to me. It was just 
before the next month’s issue came 
out, and I had finished my last copy 
and had nothing else with me to read 
I ’phoned up a friend along the line 
“Anything to read, Joe^” 1 asked 
“Whole pile of Digests here,” he 
told me. I had him send them along on 
the next train And there, on top of 
the pile, was the first copy I had ever 
read. I recognized it straightaway, 
and proved it when I turned to the 
page “It Pays to Increase Your Word 
Power,” and found my handwriting 
on the answer spaces 

I have written this not because I’m 
well-knowm, nor because I have a job 
that IS in the public eye, but just be- 
cause I wanted to say thank-you from 
all the boys along the line. We’ve 
learnt a lot and had a great deal of fun 
from all the Digests we have read. 

Our Cover /r a colourful study of Calceolarias^ 
the '^Slipper- flower'^ or **Mipper-mri” which 
were originally native to South America A popular 
favourite with all gardeners^ they are used chiefly 
for herbaceous borders 

Ektachrcme by Dave Forbert 


THE READER’S DIGEST 

VoL 64, No 385 May, 1954 

The Reader's Digest Asscqation Ltd. 
7 Old Bailey, London, E C 4 

ManaEtitE Director 
T G M Harman 

Sales Director 
W S Lcuchars 

Advertisement Director* 

John H Davenport 

In India subscriptions may be entered 
by sending order with cash to National 
City Bank of New York, 293, Dr 
Dadabhai Naoro)ce Road, Bombay 1 

Subscriptions, includini? postage 
Rs 1 8/- per year, Rs 30/- per two years 

The part rufc Readfr’s 

Digest, its headquarters in 

Pleasanrviile, , U S A , was first 
published in 2 by DeWiit Wallace 
and Lil • Acheson Wallace, its present 
edit' rs ana publishers 

Ihi- Reader's Digest International 

I niTIONS 

Bard ly Acheson, Direi tor 
Marvin Lowes, As^t Director 

Eduardo Cardenas, Adrian Beiwick, 
Ldttors 

I he Reader's Digest is published in 
other editions in the following 
linguagLS English (Sydney) John 
Grant Cooper, Busmens Alanager 
I NGiiSH (Montreal) E red D Thomp- 
son, Jr, Mana/finf Dint tor I'RPNfH 
f.ANADiAN rMontreal) Pierre Ranger, 
Ldiior French (Pans) Paul W 
1 hompson. Managing Director, Pierre 
Denover, Editor Danish tCopen- 
higen; Onni Kystcr, Ldttor Finnish 
(Helsinki) Scere Salminen, Dditor 
Gfrman (Stuttgart) M C Schreibcr, 
Editor, rZunch) Hans Schmid, 
Editor Italian (Milan) Mdno Ghisal- 
bcrti, Editor JAPANESE (Tokyo) 
Sciichi Fukuoka, Editor , Sterling 
W Fisher, Business Manager Nor- 
WFGIAN (Oslo) Astrid Sondov, Editor, 
Spanish and Portugufsb (Havana) 
Eduardo Cardenas, Editor, Rob'^rto C. 
S&nehe?, Business Manager SWEDISH 
(Stockholm) Bnta B Hebbe, Editor, 
Ture Agren, Business Manager 


Publication authorized ana copyright 1954 by The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc Reprodi^tiim m 
any manner in whole or part in Enghsh or other languages prohibi^ All rights r^rveo tnrougrout we 
world Necessary formalities, including deposit where required, effected in the United Sta^, uaada, 
jrcat Britain, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico Protection secured under the Inter- 
iiational and Pan-Amcncan copyright conventions 



m I w f>i rs \\h \R television aerials in our hats, but all of 
US -one uay or anothei — are receiving sets- Notions, 
impressions, new ideas —we get them all the time. The air is 
full of them, just as u is full of broadcast sounds and pictures 
Wc cannot help receiving something through our eyes or 
ears— we cannot be completely disconnected But have y^)u 
ever thought just how" and w-hy we pick up so many ideas and 
facts ftom the w-orld outside ourselves ^ Some of them come, 
of course, from our friends and colleagues, as pair of the 
game of “C onsccjuences” we call conversation A great many 
more, though, are put in our way’' by agencies whose motues 
we know little about- public institutions, entertainments at 
home or outside, advertisements, and every kind of reading 
matter from a fat liook in the public library- to the children’s 
comics Seeing that 'how to make friends and intluence 
people” IS the prime concern of all who serve the public - 
from the cletgyman to the shopkeeper, ftom the BBC to the 
adv-ertiser of nylon stockings - it’s clearly v-eiy impoitanr to 
know (if possible) instead of guessing (however brilliantly) 
just what “means of communication” w’c are all open to and 
how we react to them m our various ways 

As a step tow-ards this knowledge. The Reader’s Digest 
organized a large held survey — )ust completed - in the C"ity of 
Derby’^ This survey was designed to study^ the interplay of all 
the different sources trf ideas, and the w ork proved fascinating 
I'he results of our survey, w^hich are based on long and 
detailed interviews wnth 3,000 people of all sorts, have made 
a book called The Communication oj Ideas^ which is to be pub- 
lished this month The authors, Tom Cauter and John Dfiwn 
ham, have taken the material of The Reader’s Digest survey 
and made of it a study which is not only interesting in itself 
but a real contribution tt' social science as well 

ontmued on tmide back cover) 






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MALARIA— The Hunt for the Parasite 


E nglish men of letters seem to 
have developed the habit of en- 
countering malaria during their 
wanderings in Italy After Horace 
Walpole introduced the word into 
English in 1740, it was again another 
great literary figure, and none other than 
Shelley, who wrote in 1818, from Italy of 
“a malaria fever, caught in the Pontine 
FYiarshes” What is remarkable about 
this fact is that Shelley used the word 
eleven years before it was employed in a 
causal sense m English medical literature 
by McCulloch, an American doctor 
When Shellev was m Italy malaria was 
indeed very much in the news A great 
deal of .rch was going on there and 
elsewhere- to pinpoint the cause of 
malaria This search received a great 
hllip from the rapid advances made 
n the development ol the microscope 
which revealed to man a whole new 
world of pullulating micro-organisms, 
hitherto invisible to the eve 
Scientists and doctors were still under 
the spell ot the marsh-miasma, were still 
stubbornly sticking to the notion that 
the riddle of malaria lay hidden in its 
vapoury bosom Volunteers in Italy 
drank gallon upon gallon of marsh water 
and allowed it to be injected as an 
enema or nasal spray Spores of rotting 
marsh vegetation were magnified under 
the microscope and many bacteria were 
isolated But the fugitive “pathogen”, 
the causative organism of malaria, still 
eluded man's grasp 

A few years later the search took a 
sanguinary and corporal turn and there 
ensued a pre-occupation with the blood 
and tissues of malarial patients The 
typical pigmentation ot the spleen and 
the brain of a malarial patient was first 
noted by Lancisi, the Italian physician, 
in 1716 and then by Bright, an English 
doctor in 1831 In 1847, Meckel, a 
German chemist, while dissecting the 
body of a malarial patient, encountered 
•n the brain a number of protoplasmic 
masses containing black granules it is 


quite likely that he was looking at 
malarial parasites without, of course, 
realising «t Next year, Virchow, a 
German pathologist, also seemed to have 
seen them In 1876, Joseph Jones, an 
American professor of medicine, testified 
in a medico-legal case that the stains on 
the dress of the accused were not paint 
but marks of blood of “a human being 
who had sulTered or was still suffering 
from malaria ' 

At this time the new science of 
Bacteriology was coming into its own 
and the theorv of spontaneous genera- 
tion received its knock-out blow at the 
hands of Robert Koch, ‘the Czar of 
microbe hunters' A host of ‘little 
Kochs, avid for fame, stampeded into 
the scene and wrongly incriminated 
many fungi and bacteiia as the criminal 

Finally, in the wake of these charla- 
tans emerged the real hero — Charles 
Louise Alphonso Laveran, an obscure 
French army surgeon On Novemb# 
1880, at Constantine, Algeria, after two 
veais of continual effort, he saw in a 
smear of fresh blood the characteristic 
gyrations of malarial crescents— the 
parasites He found each crescent- 
shaped parasite shoot out several whip- 
like projections which moved about 
rapidly To this macabre squad of 
dancing parasites in a miniature pool of 
human blood Laveran gave the name of 
Oset liana Malaria 

The scoffing and jeering that greeted 
Laveran were short-lived His discovery 
was fully vindicated by Richard, an 
English doctor, in Algeria, in 1881 and 
in 1885 by the famous Italian patho- 
logists, Marchifava and his colleague 
Celli, and by another Italian Golgi it 
was demonstrated conclusively that the 
inoculation of healthy persons with 
blood containing malarial parasites gave 
them the disease Marchifava and Celh 
also sketched, for the first time, part of 
the development cycle of parasites and 
gave the organism its generic name of 
Plasmodium 


This IS the fourth of a series of articles hv ICl (!) Ltd ^ dtpictinft the \tot\ of 
Mans ‘.trup^le agauist Malaria from the earliest times to the present dov 




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ri^HF ANDAMANS art* situated 750 
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tf 210 miles 'rhe\ are dotted with 
iilil^and valle\s mosth covered with 
Jcnst jungle, and tht scenic effect is 
iiagnifitent in the extreme There 
ire no rivers but there are several good 
varbours with deep water, the ehief of 
hich IS Port Blair in the South 
\ndamans 

The climate is temperate all the vear 
■ound (there are verv, verv few 
ycloncs) Tht islands are a paradise 
or fishermen, but shooting is confined 
o wild deei, pig and the Andaman teal 
by all accounts, these ducks nowadavs 
i^e found only in small numbers) 

The aboriginals, w'ho used to consist 
)f 12 tribe's with their own separate 
anguage, are pygmies, and although 
lothing definite is known about their 
)rigin, the most common theory is 
hat they are descended from the 


Pygmv races which inhabited south- 
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soil, and tor food thev hunt game and 
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VOIL'ME 64 


June 1954 


An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent booklet form 


A challenge to each of us as individuals 
by one of the gieat individuals of our time 


Conden<:ed from an address 
( h.iiks A Lindbtrgh 

hdhot of the (innnl htd ^clUi “Iht Spirit of St Louis 




\N ins alvVii\s had a tendency 
to complic.iie his life with tech- 
nical knowledge and material 
devices Populations have shifted 
from faim to factory in order to 
better tend machines, administer 
commerce and gam the conveni 
eiues of city life This tendency, 
originalh fostered by intellectual 
cunositv and economic reward, 
now accelerated by militarv 
necessity and the instinct for sur- 
vival In a competitive world, life 
and freedom must be backed by 
strength 

But su A'lval has a time dimension 
which says that power consists of 
more tha n strength of arms Short- 

* See The Reader's Digest November 19^ t 


term survival may depend on the 
knowledge of nuclear physicists and 
the peitormancc of supersonic air- 
craft, but long-term survival de- 
pends alone on the character of man. 
Our scientific, economic and mili- 
t.irv accomplishments are rooted in 
the human quality which produces 
them In the last analysis, all of our 
knowledge, all of our action, all of 
our progress succeeds or fails ac- 
cording to Its effect on the human 
body, mind .md spirit While we 
concentrate our attention on the 
tools of economics and war, we 
must not neglect the basic means of 
surviving, the basic reason for sur- 
vival — man himself 
What will this modern environ- 





THE READER’S DIGEST 


ment of ours create in the future 
character of man ^ Here, rather than 
in the atom, the power which will 
establish our wisdom and decide 
our fate And, when we discuss the 
basic qualities of man, wc pass be 
yond clear-cut scientific frontiers 
We can mark down human effici- 
ency in figures of mass produciion, 
but how arc wc to evaluate mass- 
prodirtion, sa\, in siuh spiritual 
elements as f.mh .iiul )o\, compas 
Sion and cour 

To date, the results of science 
have been primariK materialistic 
W e have measured success hv oui 
products rather than by oiirscKes 
We must remember that it was not 
the outer grandeur of the Roman 
but the inner simplicit) of the 
Christian that lived on through 
the ages 

The solution lies in each individ- 
ual, through the standards he holds 
It lies not in political parties or 
radical movements, but in human 
values and gradual trends, not in a 
greatercomplication,biit in a greatci 
simplicity of life In other words, I 
believe that the solution lies within 
ourselves, and that we can find it 
nowhere else Our parties, move 
ments, laws and codes arc impor- 
tant, but they are only outward 
manifestations of our inward values 
The excessive materialism of the 
modern world is a reflection of ex- 


cessive materialism in modern man. 

The chaos of our mcKlern world is 
staggering We watch assemblies 
and conferences bog down until we 
realize that man has not the wisdom 
to solve his problems by any sweep- 
ing, detailed plan l^ut when we add 
the scope of time, and release in it 
the catilv^t of faith, the future clari- 
fies, and we see that, within the 
bounds of natural Lm , man’s destiny 
is shaped by man’s desire We de- 
sirc'd a mechanistic civilization, that 
s(t the trend, and we achicxed one 
'Vo achieye a civili/ation based on 
human \alucs icquires the desire 
within ourselves It we actually hav^ 
that desire, our scientific, industrial 
and military forces will fall, auto- 
maticalh, into line behind it, si*p 
porting with material strength the 
human qualities essential to overall 
power and permanent survival 

Hut wc must have more than an 
intellectual desiie, filed away in the 
ai chives of idea It must enter the 
roots of our being until it shapes 
our action instinctively as well as 
through the conscious mind, until 
we sec the producer as more impor- 
tant than his prcxluct, and find it no 
sacrifice to renounce material stand- 
ards of success — until wc realize in 
our bones as well as in our brains 
that the character of man still forms 
the essential core of a lasting civ- 
ili/ation 


^hew no betta ex€tct<e fot ^Uengthemng the heajt than 
teaching down and Itjting people up —Woman s Home Companion 




]‘5y Altin DCVOC Dntmmushtd natutalist and authm 


NF suNNv summer morning 
in 1911 A man crouched 
motionless in a field, peer- 
ing at some contraptions like sun- 
shades which he had set up on the 
ground near a tilted mirror Dr F 
Santschi, a zoologist, was testing a 
theory about how an ant finds its 
v\av home 

Ants in groups usually trasel 
along a nairow trail that is ehcmic- 
alK saturated in their passing, when 
one of them comes upon such a trail 
it is easily identified as the right 
roadway Further, the insect can tell 
which way is “out” from the nest 
and which “in,” perhaps because 
ants of a group leave a different 
( hem leal trace dependi ng on whether 
they are going or eomine 


Hut how' about the solitary ants 
that forage *dont and rctirn home 
eircuitouslv instead of by a traiP 
1 low e.m they keep their bearings 
m a jungle of plant stemis^ 

Dr Sanlsehi had guessed that ants 
might be sensitive to the direction 
ot light, and lake readings from the 
sun An ant was coming now, hur- 
rying as it sure of its direction Sud- 
denlv, as the ant appioachcd the 
doctor’s observation point, it slow- 
ed and wavered It had been receiv- 
ing sunlight from the cast, abruptly 
the sun had “gone out,” because of 
the sunshades Instead, a western 
sun was now shining— in reflection 
from the mirror The ant stood still, 
hesitating, then turned and set off 
brisklv in the reverse direction 



TffE KBADEt^S DIGEST 


Santschi then tried covering trav- 
elling ants with lightproof boxes for 
various lengths of time. Every time, 
when freed, the ant would take off 
on a course altered precisely to the 
degree to which sun slant had 
changed during its period in dark- 
ness On moonlight nights the ants 
responded with the same precision 
— apparentU taking their bearings 
from the mof:)n Q E D , said Dr 
Santschi Ants do take light read- 
ings to show them the wav home 
The gifts In which living crea 
tures orient themselves begin deep 
down in the chcmistrv of life A 
housefly l.irva, n'liich must have 
moisture for survnal, lias an inborn 


dfimt 

tug towards water so powerful that 
the larva wiggles its way, blind, 
mindless, inch by inch, in the direc- 
tion of any dampness A male moth, 
to find his mate in darkness, re- 
sponds U) a female scent So power- 
ful IS this sensory gift that a male 
has been found to fly to a scented 
“call” a mile and a half away 
When baby turtles hatch from 
their eggs thev must do two* things 
dig upwards through the sand or 
mud in which the mother deposited 
the eggs, then head for water To 
guide them for the first action they 
have an urge to go uphill Hut then, 
as a rule, thev must go downhill 
to fincl water W hat eancels Instrue 


The career of Dr Fell' Santsehi, one* ot the great e nromologists of our 
tinv, led him to work on thret continents Santsehi was horn in Ik \, 
Switzerland, in 1S72, the son ot an upholsterer The ambitious youth paid 
his wav through nudied school In working as a laboratory assistant at the 
Natural History Museum in Lausanne Swiss seie mists look n(»tiee of him 
and inMted him to join an expedition to (k)lonihi i rnd \knt/uela, where 
he hael his hrsl ehanee to do original work in enioiiK^logv 

In igoi Santschi eagerly aecipteel an opportunity to go te) funisn as n 
medical doetor There his life overthiwed with aelivity T’o his primitive 
little office in Kair )uan eamc streams of Arabs, to whom he hremgfit 
medication and training in sanitation and in hc.iltli habits In his back 
rocjm wa‘ a menagerie f)f Afriean reptiles, birds and animiL w'hieh he 
studieel during every spare moment Whenever he eoiilel he made field trips 
across the desert, eiflcn continuing his observations of insects at night b\ 
torchlight Most of all he was faseinaied by the habits ot ants, and studied 
and wrote abeiut nieire than a/ioei different varieties Museums all e)ver the 
world came to him for information C/n tins subject Willi all this research, 
he nevertheless found time for his family, for mu'.ic and jyictry, and for 
painting NortI Afriean landscapes 

In his lat*"r ye irs Dr Santsehi returned to Switzerland, w'here lu' con 
tinued his studies and his wTiting in a little house at Monthey overlooking 
the Knone- -the little house signiheanily called “la Fourmi” ( I he Ant) 
There he died in 1940 



t^S 4 hrmtltV OP PATHFINDINC ''f, 


tion I and supplies Instruction 2^ 

Testing turtles in control tanks, 
Dr Kingsley Noble and others at 
the American Musf'uin of Natural 
History established the answer 
light The sky over gleaming water 
has a dilTercnt biightncss from the 
sky above land, and it flashes the 
baby turtle a signal that overrides 
his uphill orders 

But it is the wide-roaming trea- 
turcs whose navigational feats are 
the most staggering ('onsider the 
silmon, which lavs its eggs inland, 
usuallv tai ii{) some fresh- water 
stream Diiiing their second year 
. the voung salmon mo\(' down- 
stream to the sea There tor two 
years 01 so thev live in salt watei, 
• ranging gicat distances When they 
reach sexual maturity, in th ir fifth 
vear, thev head back towards their 
birthplace to spawn To reach it 
thev may have to mike choices at 
fork after fork of the waterwavs 
Hut thev get there How'^ 

It seems likely the fish use subtle 
sensorv cues — perhaps chemical 
sensitiveness to their birth-water so 
keen that they detect even slight 
traces of it intermingled in other 
waters Naturalists have taken eggs 
from one stream and hatched them 
in anothci The hatched salmon, 
tagged, return to the “foster” 
stream for spawning 

For the performances of migrat- 
ing and homing birds no explana- 
tion IS really satisfying Not long 
ago 12 terns were captured on Bird 
Key, one of the Tortuga islands off 


Florida, and transported to a spot 
near Galveston, Texas, where they 
were banded and released. Five of 
them returned to Bird Kc\ — a flight 
of 855 miles Five other terns were 
taken to (kipe Hatteras, more than 
1,000 miles away Three of these 
terns were back on Bird Key within 
five da\ s 

What IS at work in such feats ^ 
Some subtle response to the earth’s 
magnetic fielcP Pcricpiion of the 
earth’s iotation.il force Navigation 
using a peculiar eyc-structure, the 
[Kcten, winch casts a shadow on a 
bird’s utina and perhaps provides 
an instrument for wav -finding by 
sun, moon and stars ^ Each theory 
has had champions, each flaws 

Awareness of the earth’s rota- 
tional force depends on scmi-circu- 
!ai canals of the inner ear — but 
birds revolved on turntables until 
orientation of this kind must be 
hopelessly deranged ‘till find their 
way Navigation hv pecten fails to 
explain the behaviour of recent ex- 
perimental pigeons which, released 
on a black night after a long journey 
m covered cages, flew for home 
within ten seconds of release Birds 
equipped with m.ignets on their 
wings, thus surrounelcd by a “field” 
of their ow'n which must completely 
confuse any awareness of terrestrial 
magnetism, continue to fly with 
serene surentss What remains? 

Naturalists have become convinced 
that there is an unknown force at 
work — a force that guides creatures 
by influences outside the sensory. 



6 


THE READERS DIGEST 


outside the mechanical, outside the 
entire spheie with which science 
ordinarily reckons Is there really 
such an unknown ^ 

Dr J B Rhine, famous Ameri- 
can psychologist, whose experiments 
with “psi” (the svmbol for extra- 
sensor> powers outside the physical) 
in human beings ha\e convinced 
fellow scientists that human psi 
must be acknowledged as prosed,* 
recenth came up with startling evi- 
dence Psi mas also be at work, he 
believes, in some animal was hnd- 
ing feats After making a trip to 
study the facts at first hand, this 
scientist tells three case histones, for 
all of which he has convincing sup- 
porting documentation 

In 1939 young Hugh Perkins of 
West Virginia made a pet of a 
stray carrier-pigeon In April 1940 
Hugh had to be taken to the hos- 
pital 100 miles over the mountains 
for an operation One snows night 
soon after his arrival he saw a 
pigeon fluttering outside his win- 
dow, and asked the nurse to open 
the window and let the bird in 
“Look at Its leg, quick*” he said 
excitedly “Pll bet it’s my bird — 
number ifiy*” The nurse read the 
band AU ^9 C'S.W 11)7 

And there was Sugar, the cat He 
belonged to th^ Woods family, in 
Anderson, California When the 
Woodses moved to a farm in Okla- 
homa, 1,450 miles away, in June 
1951, they left Sugar with friends 

• See *‘A Case for Psi,” The Reader's Dijfest, 
May. 19S4 


In August 1952 — 14 months later 
— Mr and Mrs Woods were in 
their barn milking, when a cat 
leaped through the open window 
on to Mrs Woods’ shoulder It 
purred and rubbed against her neck 
ecstaticalls It couldnt be Sugar* 
But the Woods family had to be- 
lieve It, for their pet had a peculiarly 
deformed hip bone To run a hand 
over Sugar’s flank and feel that 
strange displacement, dating from 
kittenhood, is to be convinced theie 
IS onls one of him in the world 
There was Tonv, who started to 
be a black cockci spaniel but grew 
into a distinctive multibrced all his 
own Tonv was owned bv the L F 
Doolens of Aurora, Illinois When 
the Doolens and their two bos'^s 
moved to Michigan, in June 1945, 
they gave Tonv to friends in Aurora 
Some seven weeks later Mr 
Doolen, while walking near his 
new home, was suddenly pounced 
upon by a bedraggled black dog A 
dog mostly cocker liut with unique 
additions I Ic bent down, incredu- 
lous, and fumbled for the cellar 
There it wms — an odd cut-dowui col- 
lar, with a home-made right angled 
slot in It Mr Doolen would have 
known it among all the dog collars 
on earth, for long before, in Aurora, 
he had cut it down and made the 
queer-shaped slot himself 
How did Tony and Sugar manage 
to find their own people across so 
many miles Dr Rhine’s explana- 
tion IS persuasive — but Nature still 
keeps her secrets. 




oi Just Siltin’ ’n Tlockin 


H\ 'I liomas E Saxe, Jr 

• 

> irw \R‘ \fin, while rocking 
^ conlcntcclly on the veranda 
•1 J of a v]uict seaside hotel, I had 
the hajipicst inspiiation of my life 
Lulled in bod> and soul by the 
slow, salubrious rocking motion 
anfl pleasantly monotonous squ€al{- 
sqtical{ of the chair, I thought 
drowsily of the* frenetic pace of 
modern life “Why can’t some of 
my friends join me in rocking away 
their fretting and fussing^” I won- 
dered 

From this casual lumination there 
developed a unique club whose in- 
fluence today extends from my 
business headquarters in Stamford, 

’ ' ' 'If i*' 

Th()m\s h, SAXfc, Jr , founder and presi- 
dent of a chain of restaurants, is considered 
a leading authority on the rocking chair 


Don t goof) younocker -astmplc 
relaxation recipe from America 

Connecticut, to the jungles of In- 
donesia Our membership includes 
a great jurist, a statesman, house- 
wives, legislators, barbers, ambassa- 
dors, footballers, clcig\mcn, judges, 
policemen, newspapermen 
The Sittin’, Starin’ ’n’ Rockin’ 
Club has no committees, no dues 
and no dont\ As president I have 
the honoiii of presiding over meet- 
ings which arc never held. Cards 
are issued to all members “in good 
sitting,” as well as a rocking-chair 
“operator’s licence” and a six-month 
calendar reminding members to 
rock more, especially on holidays. 
Thus simply is our membership 


THE REAPER'S PTCESf 



dedicated to recapture in our daily 
living one of the lost graces 
Think back a moment on Ameri- 
ca’s forefathers the serenity of 
soul, the simphcitv of pleasure, the 
sound-mind-in-souncl-hodv which 
so surely followed their common- 
sensical ability to s.iv “Whoa and 
just “set“ a spell Harrv Rmeison 
Fosdick deplores those who “must 
be always rustling about, doing 
something, chattering ’’ Thev are 
“pools for ever blown upon by rest- 
less winds, that never grow calm 
enough to reflect an\ thing be<iuti 
ful ” 

Whv have wc lost the fine irt of 
beneficial floating^ In all nature, 
quietude is essential to growth 
The 1700S and 1 800s were the 
great dav s of the rocking c hair when 
everv kitchen and nurstrv — room^ 
of living and love, vou will note, 
rather than the “parlour” -held at 
least one of these graceful, animate 
pieces of furniture 
And thev were lived in I know 
people today who trea<:ure the family 
rockers, many of which date back 
hundreds of \cars Thev were used 
to soothe a child bothered bv thf 
bogyman, to abate Father’s dvs- 
pepsia, to give Grandmother a 
warm haven by the fire 

In all our modern design, can you 
think of any other appurtenance so 
vcrsatik ^ By merely adding two 
curved horizontal runners to four 
’uprights, American genius thriftily 
Cashioncd an invention as simple 
and pro£Dund, almost, as the wheel 


Although Benjamin Franklin is 
said to hast invented the rcKking 
chair, says John Gloag in A Short 
Ihctionaty of Furntture (CJeorge 
Mkn c>c Unwin, ), a Lancashire 
origin has also been elainitd for it 
John Gloag reports “Rocking 
chairs of bentwood were designed 
ind piodiietd in large ejiiantilies by 
Michael Tlionet in the iS6os These 
chairs, with their cane se.its and 
backs and ch iiacleiistic cuivtd 
frames, l)ecame fX)pular in bntaiii 
md America Hy the iHSos ilicy 
were an cieccptcd and familiar it«.m 
III the furnishing of tin Vielonan 
home, and allowed laches (o ula\, 
[Kiliips 1 little ineleganllv This 
bentwood type did much to fiofU’ 

I in/( til' UK king ehaif in Britain, 
ihough in \mtriea it did not sue 
eeed in diminishing the national 
afleetion lor the origin il models, •*, 
which have retained thcii popularity 
toi o\e I I ^e» \t ai s 

something lor all ages, all moods 
For vcais the icxkcr was .in im- 
portant wedding gift, and a good 
rocker wms handed down gt nciation 
after gt nciation Onlv in recent 
years has it, lias, been relegated to 
the attic 

About the middle of the last een- 
turv the one detectable flaw in the 
rcjcking chair was corrected On the 
old, widc-l)()ard floors it hadn’t even 
been noticed, but as flooring got 
more polished and treacherous, rock- 
ing chairs began to slide The patent 
rocker, mounted on a platform base, 
solved the difficulty 
I have heard — and firmly believe 
-that rocking improves circulation 



^54 ' ^ CENTLE ART OP JUST SITTIN' ROCKIN^ 


and IS therefore especially beneficial 
for the old Our grandfathers went 
further, recommending the “to-and- 
fro” exercise as a palliatne for rheu- 
matic pains and a reliable curf for 
tonstipution 

Dj Janet Traxcll of Cornell Uni 
vcisitv recommends the lockcr for 
am prolonged reading “The eon- 
stantK ehanging position uill lelax 
\()ui muscles ind rest \ou,” she 
[)oinls out 

d'bis art ot itstiiig the mind, dis 
missing (.sen for a feu moments all 
^tirc <uid v\cjrr\, is (jne ol the seeicts 
('t the app*irentl\ e\haustless ( nerg\ 
of meii like Nkipoleon, (iladstone 
ind hdison 

When I founded the Sillin’, St«irin' 
Koekin' (’liib I was thinking 
onl\ ol msself <ind ,i lewv friends 
Hut before long others had hcaid ol 
the club .111(1 asked to be m<idcrnem 
bers IVasellcrs p.issing through 
Stamford visited our elub-rejom 
with rs eolleetion ol iiuniature and 


heirloom rockers and its uncon^,; 
nccted telephone Sittin’, Starin’ ’n* ] 
Rockin’ had touched the nostalgic 
heartstrings 

'Fhis feeling, happiK, is more 
than national Rocking enthusiasts 
are enrolled in Faigland, Canada, 
Australia, Caiba, V'cne/uela, Spam 
and Indonesia From Ffolland, 
where the rue king chair, curiously, 
is little knowm, a businessman 
sought the h'uropean import lieence, 
and .1 gnl ol askeel how' she 
Lould obtain sik h .i chan for her 
mothei 

Somehow, I wish, instead of jet 
[dancs .me! atomie artillerv, all the 
w'orlel w'ould come to ip[)reciate 
man s gentler invention Surely the 
great eapilals and that iTian\-win- 
vlovwd pal.iee dtelieated to peace on 
the t River, New ^ ork, might 
iiuitlulK ponder the molt j carved 
into the (lecoi alive he.idpicce of 
m.inv an old loeker 

Sit )c, Koc^ anil Thinly 


Onotable Quotes 

Anonymous: Sometimes vve think the vvoiI(] is growing w'orse, hut it 
m ly jiisi he th.it the news and railio eOverage is better 

L. S. McCandless: The best thing about gening old is that all those 
things you couldn’t have when you wen young you no longer want 

-Quotid b> E.ul Wilson, Post-Hall Syndicate 

Don Raihle: We've iKver had it so good nor taken away from us so 

fast - — Quoted m ]Vlinne.ipoIis Sunday Tribune 

Franklin P. Jones, columnist Nothing inc^dernizcs a home so com- 
pletely as an ael offering it tor sale —Quoted m Tht Saturday Etening Post 



^ TV and a Revolution 

HtRBI*RT CoRtY IN “ThE FrLEMAN” 

L been rcvisiiing a little town where I once lived It’s a lovely place, 
clean, bright and well kept But not everyone there is content 

“It used to be a good town,” said Abe Bliss, w'ho has been the town’s 
political boss lor ^o years “No rough stuff I wouldn’t stand for it Every- 
body satisfied, except maybe a few preachers Now look at it Dead ” 

“Reformers get you, Abe 

“I could always handle them Something just went wrong Maybe it 
was television The TV people got to showing a few black spc>ls around 
town— every town has ’em — and the voters got stirred up I never got 
w'lsc until It vv is too late ” 

Evervone had alwavs known what was going on and no one really 
seemed to cart 

But after ^o years of indifTerenee the voters stood Abe Bliss and his 
organization on thtir ears Abe thinks that television did it He may be 
right 

The American television networks are uf) against a very tough set of 
facts Their local stations— there will soon be 2,000 of them- -must have 
fresh material If humour and lantasy and tragedy cannot b^ produced iii 


sufficient Cjuantity, they must r< ly on news J 

But the owner of a TV set in a small towm gets fed up with what goes j 

on in Teheran or Washington or London When, however, the T\' j 

stanon offers him the facts of daily life in his own home town, he sits 1 
up and takes notice | 

What tripped Abe Bliss in my towm was that the voters learned for the 
first time friim the 1 \" what had been going on “There are black spots 
in every town,” as Abe said It is only when they become visible that 
the voters m irk the ballots 

★ 

Worst Foot Forward i 

CrvKt B(K)inr Li f i , US Ambass.iJor to Italy, tells about a big rcccf)- 
tion w'hen the handshaking queue suddenly stopped, leaving a flustered 
American giil standing in front of the Ambassador “Oh, Mrs Luce,’ 
she said, “it’s so wonderful to be over here in Rome seeing all these old, 

I romantic ruins— and you, too ” The Ameruan iVetkiv 

i Ai ANOTHER PARTS, a tactlcss guest cornered her host and babbled, 
“Who IS that old lady chattering over there in the corner^” 

“That,” said the host with frigid dignity, “is my eldest daughter ’ 

“Oh dear,” exclaimed the embarrassed guest, “she’s a lot older than 
[ you are, isn’t she^^ ’ Thu Week ■ 



The Men Who Tamed 
die Moving Mountain 


Ih Alhct 0 Matscl 


ms IS the stoiv of 200 heroes— 
tunnel stills --who delicel a 
moMng mountain, rcseutd a 
fertile \alleN and saved the liveli- 
hood of 5,()()() people Seldom have 
men worked under such a high 
pileh of exeite merit 
The stoiv starts nearly 40 years 
agc), vvdien another hand of tunnel 
mole s . halle nged the Colorado River 
in a goige above Cirand junction, 
Colorado hoi live \tars they eltig 
and blasted Thev built a dam and 
eanal, and when ihev couldn't t.iek 
their llumc to the mountainside thev 
burrowed through W hen thev had 
finished, the (jranel Valley High 
Line carried river water 20 miles 
— thioLigh two anel a half miles of 
tunnels — to rcelaim :5o,()0(j aeies 
from the desert A thousand fami- 
lies came to make (irand Valley 
blossom with peaches, sugar beet, 
lucerne and tomatoes 


For tliiee deeades the vallev pros- 
pered Them last winte*', n iliirc re- 
belled Deep in the heart of a moun- 
tain, miles from the thirsty fields, 
the earth stretehed anel groaned. 
A million tons of roek anel earth 
wanted to move t iwards the river 
heleiw', and the tunnel was right in 
their path T'lnv eracks and fissures 
apjieared on the thiek coneiete lin- 
ing of Tunnel Number 3, near 
C.arne'o 

'I'hen on I'c biliary 27, 1950, a 
heaw lain lubricated the slide, 
(iiant ehimks of coneretc fell away 
fi(;m the tunnel wall B) March 8 
the whole mountain slope was on 
the go, dropping a hundred feet to 
the river’s edge The twisted tun- 
nel lay blocked and useless, and dis- 
aster had fallen upon the valley it 
served 

It wasn’t )ust a year’s crop the 
farmers would lose; unless water — 

II 


Condensed from Empire Magaz ne 


/3 


THE READEk'S DIGEST 


June 


millions of gallons of it — could be 
run through the fields, tens of thou- 
sands of young peach trees would 
die. And with them would wither 
all hope for most Grand Valley 
farmers 

The day after the disaster U S 
Assistant Secretary of the Interior 
William Warne flew to (irand 
Junction to «‘tir\e\ the damage 
Soon telegrams were going out to 
22 contractors - \irtuallv e\crv tun- 
nel-building firm in the American 
West 

On March lo — 48 hours after the 
break — plans and specifications for 
a by-pass tunnel had been completed 
by the U S Bureau of Reclamation 
engineers 

It was a simple plan if you could 
take half a year to put it through 
But the Bureau men, with the farm- 
ers at their backs, put a 72-da\ limit 
on the job On ordinar\ tunnel 
work, when the going is smooth 
and the rock is sound, 40 feet of 
progress a day is considered good 
But the (yrand Valiev by-pass w.is 
scheduled for go feet a day More- 
over, the Bureau of Reclamation 
had set a terrific penalty — a 
day — if water didn’t flow' by June 2 

Under these conditions, only 
seven of the 22 contractors even 
bothered to bid One outfit, how- 
ever, actively sought the contract 
On behalf of two partner companies 
P. A Peters visited the site on 
JMarch 13 The next day he settled 
to a Denver hotel room and, with 
nothing more to go on than a con- 


tour profile of the mountain, he 
worked out an estimate 

No academic engineer, Peters 
nonetheless had a lot of tunnel work 
behind him He had been excava- 
tion superintendent at Boulder 
Dam At Red Hill in Hawaii he 
had planned the blasting of more 
than two million yards of deep rock 
to form the U S Navy \ great bomb- 
proof fuel storage reservoirs In 
( Colorado he had just finished the 
Molybdenum Tunnel a full year 
ahead of schedule And his crews 
were, at that very moment, moving 
into position to break ground for a 
se ven-milhon-dollar iirigation tun- 
nel that would lake at least thiee 
years to build 

If ever a man had nf» need to bor- 
row .1 headache, th.it w'as “Pete” 
Pete IS But the very challenge that 
marie others shy at the job fascin- 
ated him The successful bidder 
would have to promise to complete 
a SIX months' job in barely ten 
weeks, and g.imblc ufi to a ejuarter 
of a million doll.irs on it Peters still 
doesn't know why he took the risk 
or how he induced his .issociates to 
go .ilemg 

“1 guess I’m superstitious,” he 
sav s “Mrs Peters sat in on the esti- 
mating with me And whenever 
she’s been there we’ve always got 
the job and made out well on it ” 

On March 14 their bid W'cnt in 
I’wo days later Peters got a phone 
call frejm the chief construction en- 
gineer of the Bureau of Reclama- 
tion “You’re it,” he said grimly. 



i<)f4 who tameu the mvmc mountain 




The next morning, March 17, Peters 
signed the contract and caught a 
plane t-or (jrand Junction 

Even before the bid had been 
submitted, Peters had tipped off his 
crews in UmIi, miks from 

("amto For three days tbev had 
been loading generators, muckers, 
l(xomoti\es and drill mounts on to 
their trailer trucks The coinoy was 
on Its wa\ a day and a halt before 
the contract was signed As Pctcis' 
pljne put down at ("inind junction 
the hrst trucks came rumbling 
through the town headed for 
Cameo 

By Sunda\ morning three full 
shifts weie working louiul the clock 

Progress .it the upper end of the 
•tnnncl was slow — ten, then 12, then 
15 feet a da the men ! aeked 
through bioken loek and wet earth 
The\ had to erect steel .ind timbei 
bulkhe.ids cver\ foot of the w.iy as 
they headed for solid lock ^00 feet 
back r" the mount.iin 

At the lower end the cre^ws were 
in deep lock all the time Each da\ 
new and loiigci fcxitagc marks were 
chalked in led on charts that hung 
in Peters’ office and at the tunnel 
portals 

After two weeks, Peters knew 
that the danger of losing a c]uarter 
of a million dollars was growing 
slimmer every day B\ punching 
on at a reasonable pace, burning 
out no expensive drills and paving 
no overtime, he could fulfil the con- 
tract and assure his organization of 
a very tidy profit as well 


But the situation in the valley re- ^ 
mained desperate Ever) )ear the 
water had been turned into the 
thirsty orchards between April I 
and 15 and heavy irrigation had be- 
gun bv Mav I If the sluices weren’t 
opened until June, the older trees 
might still bear a stunted crop, but 
the v('ung trees, not vet deep rooted, 
would die by the ihoi.sancl 
I)a\ alter da\ the farmers drove 
up from the \allev to study the pro- 
gress report “How far to go^" they 
would .rsk And you could lead the 
disippointmf nr on their faces as 
th( v muttered their th.inks and 
turned, round-shouldeicd, to go 
back to their bone dr\ orchards 
Peters could h.ive plavcd it safe. 
Instead he called in his drillers and 
announced that the\ would work, 
Irom then on, on a bonus schedule. 
For c\er\ foot of pi ogress above 18, 
on each e^ght hour shift, they would 
receive an extra half-hour’s pay. 

I his proved to be, in eflcct, a pay 
incicasc of from 25 to 50 per cent. 
The monev would come out of the 
companv's profits, for the contract, 
despite its penalty clause, had no 
counterbalancing provision for a 
bonus payment in the event of early 
completion of the job 
Ifiese men were old teams, long 
used to working together. And, 
being tunnel stiffs, they had a 
fiercely competitive tradition. With 
the competition now official, it be- 
came a real fight — friendly, full of 
clowning, but nonetheless a battle. 
Shift bosses and their crews laid bets 





THE RE4DER'S DIGEST 


on the footage, from a drink or a 
bottle to as high as $50 The day- 
shift men, up at the tunnel tace, 
would set their watches hack to load 
another few cars of muck and gain 
another foot The swing-shift men, 
waiting at the portal, set thtir 
watches ahead, called the time- 
keeper cra/\ and rnarihcd to woik 
carl\ 

Once at the viorkmg 1 lee, the men 
fused into 1 smooth tuiutioning 
team. With a clanging of hells, a 
dumpy mine loeomoti\e voiild 
come sailing dow n the long corridor 
bringing in the jiimho rig with its 
SIX heaw drills Before it had 
stopped, men would lock the light, 
power, water and an hoses into 
place In less than three minutes, as 
I timed them, the drills were pf)si- 
tioned and a dozen men swarmed 
over the tw'o-lc\el rig to start the 
raucous pounding whuh leases all 
tunnel stiffs half deaf h\ 

Whth SIX drills hiting into the 
stone, It seldom took man than 
half an hour to drive through 45 
cight-foot-dccp holes Then [lowder 
charges would he set in, the crews 
would retreat, and the blast wou*d 
np the tube eight feet deejitr into 
the mountain 

Bare from their plastic helmets to 
their W'aists, the sweating diggers 
worked seven davs a week through 
half of March and all April Some 
times they had m.ichine trouble, 
but, miraeulouslv, there were few 
of the accidents that usually plague 


even a slow-tcmpo tunnel job Not 
a single death occurred, not even a 
major injurv 

Constanth biting away at the 
mountain — with even the had da\s 
good, and the good davs terrilie- 
thev holed through on April 27, live 
and a hall weeks .ihcacl of w'h.u had 
looked like an impossible scludule 
With tour more davs for cleanup 
and getting then equijiment hack 
on to the road, the water was all set 
to flow hv the I'lrst ot M.iv — in time 
to save the j>eaeh trees and tlu pro> 
peritv ot a thousand blossoming 
faims 

Karlv that next week the people 
of (irand V^lllev pLinned a eelehia- 
tion Ihit It never c.ime olT hoi the 
tunnel men staged their owm h.irhe- 
euc, it two (lav shindig that .in 
Ameriean contractor tr idition.illv 
thiows tor his ciews when a ]oh is 
finished Ikts were [)aid oft, toasts 
were drunk, songs w'ere sung and 
cvervone had a roaring time 

Then the trucks got rolling .ind 
the 200 heroes made foi h(*rne and 
a week of w'ell t.irned rest 

Ihev got no toirn.il thank n on 
from the (irand V.ille v W ater Users 
Association But is they moved out 
tliiough the dusk, the famiers and 
their wives and kids came down to 
the fenees to see them off. And 
across the vallev floor .1 million little 
rivulets were winding from the 
High Line Canal to feed each thirsty 
furrow Nature, her rebellion end- 
ed, was back in harncsi» 



Turkey: tough ally, 


EAGER FRIEND 


Gordon Ga^l(ill 


ni don’t know wh.U luitrcd 
ot the Russians is until \ou 
visit Tuikc\ T’urkish his- 
t()i\ is full of the blood feud One 
old man told me how all the 44 able 
h(;dicd men ol his \illaoc wrnt out 
to fight the Russians, long ago lb 
alone rtuirncd alive minus i kg 
.NJ[an\ renumber a single winter 
battle of World War 1 in which 
50,000 Turks and Russians killed 
eaeh other On a tombstone in an 
Ankara eemeteiv there is a rare, al- 
most shameful inscription He Died 
Without Fighting the Russians 
et illhough the Turks have 400 
miles of frontier with two blood 
enemies — Red Bulgaria and Red 
Russia- -even the bolder people 
seem far less jitterv than Londoners 
01 New Yorkers A Turkish cap- 
tain, so near the Russian frontier 
that he can hear motor horns in the 
vSoviet oil port of Batum, gestured 
contemptuously “Let them eomc'“ 
he said “One Turk can take earc of 
ten Russians ” 

Like many foreigners, I thought 
Turkey would be a sleepy, Oriental 
land full of minarets and veiled 


vvonu n MckIci n I’urks hear of such 
things with amused resignation 
\oud piobablv have to go to a 
museum to lind a turban or veil m 
Turk(v todav Men wear clothes’ 
like othci Westerners PoKgamy 
\v IS abolished in 1926, and was al- 
most unheard-of even then Turkish 
women vote, become lawvers, doc- 
tors, members ot parliament — and 
tlicir clothes w^ould look well any- 
where in the West 

Turkcv is Western and dynamic, 
bustling and businesslike —chiefly 
because of a single man, Mustapha 
Kemal, later given the honorary 
name of Ataturk, which means “fa- 
ther of the Turks “ From Mking 
power in 1920 to his death in i93^> 
Ataturk tiuh Turkc\ He vanked 
her out of the Middle Ages and 
brought her to mcxlerniU at a speed 
never known anv where bcforf‘, even 
in japan 

Turkev is still following the road 
Atatuik pointed out Apart from 
Israel, it is the only country in this 
part of the world that is really hard- 
working, eager to get ahead 

So far America has sent about 

15 


Condensed from The American Magazine 



/6 

$1,300,000,000 (more than >(^464 
million) in aid to Turkey Three- 
fourths has been for military pur- 
poses, the rest for economic help 1 
don’t know an\ other country where 
aid of this sort has brought such 
dramatic rt suits 

Take roads Experts realized that, 
to help Turkes, \ou had to help 
* her farmers— S2 per cent of the en- 
tire population And, to help the 
farmers, \ou had to ha\c roads 
When thev tiied to urge a Turkish 
peasant to use newer farming meth- 
ods and tools, he’d shrug and ask, 
“Why^ There’s no vva\ to get (^ur 
produce to market ” 

Even in 1^48, 'Furkish roacK were 
so bad that in most sountnes thtv 
wouldn't e\en be dignified b\ that 
name Not a single foot of roadway 
was m«unrainc(l by am kiiivl ot 
machiner\ — just b\ pick and shovel 

So about ^ 28 ,ooo,<kh) (/io mil 
lion) was allotted for road-buiIding 
machinerv and the salaries ot a 
handful of U S experts 'I urkc\ 
provided all labour and materials 
The experts worked out a high 
priority network of about 15,000 
miles of roads Then fhc\ worked 





With the Turks in building or re- 
building some 5,000 miles of it. And 
todav the whole 15,000 miles of vital 
road gets all-weather machine main- 
ten a lue 

'I hc roads worked like a mighty 
blood transfusion For centuries 
[Kasaiits have giow'ii onlv enough 
food to suf^iK them selves (jr to 
traele locallv Nov/, able to senel 
their things to distant markets for 
harel e.ish, thev 're t agei to k arn ne w 
methods of inereasing produetion 
One elav in an Ankara lestauraiit 
1 talkcel with a representative of a 
big U S corporation His mission 
was to investigate in\estment possi 
bilitie s in othe r eounli les 

'Unless war eomes,” he said, 
“\ou won’t be able le> reeogni/e 
'I’urkev in 2n \c irs, inivbe less 
Ihev’vc got just about tvervthing 
here — <nul tluv re eager to work and 
eager to learn 

He eonnted oil luikev’s natural 
aelvantages pree ions lungsien, ehro 
miLirn, lead, /me, eeippcr, antimony, 
eobalr Oil has been found, and 
there’s promise th it important new 
fielels wull be disc ov, red 

“d here aren l many plaees in the 
w'orlel whe re v oil’ll find huge 
deposits of ee)al and irein ly- 
ing side by side, just erving 
out to be maele into steel,” 
he said “Hut I’urkey’s got 
them And she’s got plenty 
of geiod rivers to make all 
the cleetrie power she’ll 
ever need I only wish I 
had a wael of my own 


■ ‘THE READBR^S D/fiE 5 T 



TURKEY* TOUGH ALLY. EAGER FRIEND 


r<>^4 

money to invest here. You can’t 
lose ” 

A careful economic survey of 
Turkey confirms what he said, and 
more 

Many countries aie land-hungry, 
but onlv about one-third of Tur- 
key’s arable land is being worked 
todav Two million acres could be 
tilled tomorrow, and mans millions 
more when the risers are dammed 
and irrigation is dcs eloped 

The country can easily support a 
population of 50 million instead of 
the slightls moic than 20 million 
u has mdas 

The tourist business is bound to 
boom At pre<ient it hardly exists, 
because of the ancient Turkish siis 


picion of foreigners. As this feeling^ 
fades, Turkey could become a tour- 
ist paradise — I hardly know another 
country with so much to ofTer the ^ 
sight-seer Along the Mediterranean 
there’s rich, dreamlike country, 
warm, and heayv with fruit Inland 
are rushing streams full of fish, 
and fantastic mountains — including 
Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark 
landed There are Biblical shrines 
such as Ephesus and Tarsus, and 
splendid classical ruins Some day, 
when the hotel situation improves, 
travellers will (lisco\er Turkey, and 
there’s going to be a stampede 
If things keep going as they are, 
Tuikc\ mav l>ceome the No i 
prodigy nation of the w^oild 


Picturesque Speech 


Her singing was mutiny on the 
high (^\ (Htkn Boiieiu) Our dog IS 
)ust a pup squeak (tJeomt jdnus) A 
him actress w'hosc talent is detectable 
only * ith a tape measure (iiimthon, 
Ontiiru) ’^peilatot) 

Define points Gentleman farmer 
man with more hay in the bank than 

in the barn (quoted E.irl Wdson) 

Bachelor — man who has faults he 
doesn’t know about {Th^ SaUndax hten 
•fit! Pou) Secret- -something a 

woman can keep with a telling efic'ci 

(Paul CJilbert) 

Enjoying the signery Liquor-store 
fire sale, “We Are Carrying On With 
Unbroken Spirits” Busy Army 
highway in Korea, “Keep Right- 
Centre Lane for Crashing Only ” 


Iside lines' If you don’t think some 
drisers can turn on a small com — try 
olTcring one as a tip to the lixi driver 
yTit Wall stttit inurnui) Nothing caii 
stop a woman in the middle of a 
stntciue like the airi\al of another 
woman with tw'o men (O \ Battista) 

\V Lilly Cox “I’se got the kind of 
lacc that looks as though I \e already 
betn w iited on” iNC'B- r\) 

What lia\c you read or heard lately 
that d<str\ts a wider audicntc'' To the 
hrst eontributoi ot each item used in 
this de|urtnitiu a pa\mtnt ot 3 guineas 
will he maelt upon pubhc.uion Con- 
irthtiitons should he dated and the 
I soutie rruLt he 

Address ritiurcsquc Spt'tch hditor, 
The Reidtr’s Digest, 27, Albemarle 
Sirttf, 1 onclon W i Contributions 
^.annot hi acknowledged 




The Most 
Unforgettable 
Character Fve Met 

/A' Ralph McGill 

1 I lit \rlann ('institution 


\Ri, s.iid Mrs Sandburg, 
‘'wi ')c down anv minute 
now Even when he wwks 
till dawn he is up In lunch time " 
I waited on the porch, rocking in 
one of the big old-fashioncd chairs 
and thinking of tht man with the 
'boyish heart who, at 7^, still pours 
forth writing and song p<)sscssing 
the simple l)cautN and strength ot 
the marching, blue mountain ranges 
of the Appalachians on which I 
looked 

Soon there was a booming voice 
^ and Carl Sandburg came out Wc 
sat and talked As always on a v»sit 
to Connemara, as his homt' is called, 
the first subject is the view It looks 
across miles of tumbled, folded 
ranges all the wav to towering Mt 
Mitchell, clothed in th(' eternal ha/e 
of bite which the Indians said was 
die shadow of the (jr^'at Spirit 
Sandburg recalled a storv an- 
^X>ther writer once told him of the 


Until he .vas ^5 Carl .Sandburg 
was totally unknown to the lit 
trary world Since then his prose 
and [)oetry have achuved wide 
recognition ami renown He has 
won two Pulit/er pii/es one in 
1^40 for his biogriphy of Alira- 
him Lincoln, ilu olhti in igsi 
for his ( omplitt Poems 

days when she was writing at her 
South C'arolina plantation An old 
Negro woman who had been her 
nurse came into the room 
“What you doin', honey " the 
old wom.m asked 
“Writing " 

The old woman pointed to the 
Msta of oak and pine stretching 
away frt'm the house “Here’s writ- 
in’ out dcrc, honev," she said 
Looking out across the ancient 
mciuntams which centuries before 
had seemed so endless to the ex- 


Portrait rirauiri/f ft a photograph hv Edward Steirhrn 




THE MOST UNFdRGETT4BLE CHARACTER WE MET 


plorer Dc Soto’s weary, gold-hun- 
gry adventurers, Sandburg echoed 
admiringly, “Dcre’s writin’ ” 

The house called ("onnemara, 
about d mile .md ti half up from 
Flat Rock, North (Carolina, sits 
alone, surrounded b\ pine, hem- 
lock and rhododendron Often 
Sindbiirg leases his desk, [)uts a 
couple of sandwiches in his pocket 
and disappears into the vvoe)ds, not 
to leliirn until daik 

“A man must get avvav now and 
then to expcTunee loneliness," he 
said “Only tl'H)sc wdio learn bow 
to live with loneliness can come tr 
know themselves and life 1 go out 
there and walk and look at the trees 
and skv I listen to the sounds of 
roneliness I sit on a rock or a stum[> 
and sav to mvself, ‘\V ho arc vou, 
wSandburg^ Where have vou been, 
and where are vou going 

“Time," he continued, “is the 
eoin of (uir lives W'e must take care 
how' we spend it Once I met a man 
OP a train who told me with eon 
siderable pride that he had heard 
more than fioo ccaistcutivc radio pro- 
grammes by a well-known come- 
dian He had never missed one and 
was looking forward to establishing 
a record Raelio and television have 
main fine things to ifTer, but 1 
wanted to ask him whv he didn't 
learn how to spenel the hours of his 
life himself, rather than allow' 
others to spend them for him A 
man must discover his own life, and 
how to spend time, the stulT of 
which existence is made ” 


^9 ' 

The Sandburgs came to their 
mountains in from Michigan, 
The grievous cold and winds of 
winter had moved them to decision, 
and one summer they drove south- 
wards, the heat heavy upon them all 
the u'a\ In the dusk of a long, 
w'eaiving dav their car climbed the 
curving road to Asheville, North 
C^arolina There was a cool breeze 
and the air was good 

"This IS the place," said Sand- 
hill g 

Davs later the\ found the “old 
Memmingcr house," deserted and 
bo.irdcd up, hut lovely with old 
trees, the slope of the range rising 
daik behind it Perhaps it was )ust 
chance— though it is easy to be- 
lieve It .1 sort of destinv — that 
brought this son of a Swedish im- 
migrant, internationallv famous as 
the biographer ol Abraham Lincoln, 
to the pillared house built bv one of 
the ‘rebel chieftains" of Lincoln’s 
war vears C'onnemara was the 
home of Christopher Gusta/us 
Memminger, sccretarv of the South- 
ern ("onfecleracv 's treasury during 
the American Civil War 
Sandburg and his family took 
('onnemara U' their hearts First 
theie was much joiner v and plaster- 
ing to do “There came a time,” 
said Sandburg, “when 1 began to 
look in the crannies and uneJer old 
stones to sec iFthe secretary of the 
treasurv had It'ft anv money around 
-<'vcn (Confederate — to help pay 
the eonti actor " 

Hlk at last It was done 



rm READER^S^ DIGEST 


“Then came the great move,” 
Sandburg recalls, “mostly books 
and goats ” ' 

Goats'^ In Michigan there had 
been a shed It was too small for a 
cow, which ("arl wanted “We’ll get 
a goat then,” he said And thev did 

From that one milk goat the herd 
grew to i6() puicbreds This has 
now been reduced bv sale to a neaibv 
dairy, leaving onl\ enough to sup- 
ply the Sandburgs’ needs There is 
a pitcher of cold go it’s milk on the 
table at lunch and dinner, along 
with butter and cheese Mrs Sanel 
burg IS a genius in the kitchen, and 
her cheese, \ogiirt and breads are 
prized bv appreciatuc visitors 
Travelkrs frcc]ucntl\ see the tamil 
iar figure of Sandbuig, set ofT l>\ 
the shock of white hair o\cr the left 
eye, sitting in a tram reading a book 
or manuscript, munching content 
cdly on one of Mrs Sandburg’s 
cheese sandwiehes and drinking 
goat’s milk from a thermos fiask 

The fact that Sandburg practises 
the old virtues of temperate li\ing 
and plain, wholesome eating has 
helped keep him \oimg in bodv, 
spirit and mind (^nec, before a 
walk, I waited while he changeel to 
a warmer shirt I noticed how firm 
and smc;oth the flesh wms on his 
arms and shoulders His legs arc 
sound, toc), and much ve)unger men 
are sc*on walked down — as I dis 
covered 

His working quarters consist of 
a neat, Spartan -like bedroom and 
I small workroom with a window 


which looks out on the “wntin’ out 
dere ” He begins work in the late 
afternoon, and often keeps at it into 
the dawn He wears an old-fash- 
loned green eyeshade, such as news- 
paper editors once wore, and most 
of the time there is the stub of a 
“seegar” m his mouth 

Sandburg still rcl.i\cs w'lth his old 
guitar, used in hundrctls ol lectures 
in which he has sung folk ballads 
or se)me of his poems He likes to 
sit on the front porch and make up 
sonu'' as the mood cones tij him, 
.ihout the hills, the visitors, or a big 
news stor\ of the da\ His voice 
has almost the Cjualitv and timbre 
ot a musical instrument 

He has the natural simplieit\ of a 
trul\ great person It might he said 
that he inherited simplicit\ and 
t nth Among Sandburg's earliest 
recollections is that of his father, 
who toiled ten houis a da\ in rail- 
wav workshops T’he elder Sand- 
burg couldn't write, hut could read 
a little The son remembers him 
bent over the Ikhle — a Swedish 
iiil)lc from the old counirv — and 
he remembers, too, his mother’s 
pra\ers and her whole wav of litc, 
which was, in a real sense, a living 
testament of faith 

A letter his mother WTOte in 1926, 
a few days before her death, helps 
to explain Sandburg’s gentleness 
and humility and deep leeling for 
humanit) In her groping words 
can be seen the foiind.itions foi 
some of licr son’s later poems. 
“Life IS short if early days are 



mE MOST UNIFOKGhTTABLE CHARACTER I'VE MET 


lost. . .With thought and love 
in the home so much can be over- 
come . . I find so much comfort 

in the thought of wi.j men; the 
Bible IS full of It The larger 
wisdom behind the veil is yet strong 
and able to uplift the cilished 
Oushed I am many times, hut not 
to death The apron (jf silence is 
with me Silcn«.e is a gift He silent 
During a v isit with Sandburg last 
summer, our talk turned to his si\ 
funcoln books And tlu n he w.is off 
“You take Lincoln when he 
floated A caiKje down the Sangamon 
River in the summer of iS^i — 
ing to New S<.km It was a town of 
just about a do/cn families at the 
time, \et f<^r the voung man from 
ihe prairie it was a cosmopolitan 
metropolis Think w'hat it meant to 
him, the raw boned voting fellow 
f)ut of tlu backwoods’ 

“At New' S.ilcm there was a mill 
run by the Rutledges and Camcions 
[ Sandburg spoke as if thev wxre 
actu 1 acquaintances of his | A man 
could hear all sorts of talk there as 
the farmers, from all parts of the 
new countrv and the old, came to 
grind their corn and wheat And 
there WMs a school taught bv Mentor 
Graham, a college graduate (ira 
ham developed a special friendship 
for young Lincoln and soon had 
him devouring books A debating 
society was organi7f‘d, and Lincoln 
made his first real speech before it 
“There was talk and enterprise 
there to sharpen, the mind. It was in 
New Salem that the young Lincoln 


began to find himself, to take on 
polish and to react to the best in hiS 
environment When he moved on 
to Springfield he was ready for life/* 
There w'as more of Lincoln, 
wSandburg seeminglv has never for- 
gotten a single scrap of information 
discrwcrcd in 20 years of research 
on Lincoln He lives closely with 
his writing He felt so near to Lin- 
coln that when he vvrcjte the last 
chapters of The Wat Yeats he had 
to stop work from time to time to 
control his tears 

Later the conversation turned to 
the 1C cent >uccess of Always the 
^ Sttanget^, the story of Sand- 
burg’s first 21 \ears It is a warm 
and inspiimg picture of the son of 
a Swedish immigrant gi owing up 
in a small Illinois town It was pub- 
lished on Sandburg's 75th birthday, 
the ^oth book bv a man whose 
fithcr had never learned to write. 

It is a lot easiei to be with Carl 
Sandbmg, listening or just sitting 

Here IS a list of books by Carl 
Sanciburg publishtel in Pnglanel 

O' Sttel (U)22, Cape, 

7 ' (ni ) 

Rontuhiigii Pigt ( 1924, H irrap, 

<»' ) 

Rootiihii^ii Stmus Harrap, 

) 

Ihfdhan} Lincoln The Piaittt 
\cuis 2 \ols 1^1 (y2b, Cajx, 42J ) 

SAtcttil Poems (1926, Cape, 

6. Ud) 

Storm Over the Lund (1943, 
CajK, i2r ()d ) 

llu’uvs the Young Strangers- - 

autobiography (1953, Cape, 25^ ) 



fHE kEADERTS DfCEST 


looking at the “writin’ of the blue 
ridges, than to write about him He 
is a rugged man whose face and 
figure might fittingK be chiselled 
out of rock He is, himself, so muth 
the story of what America is sup- 
posed to mean in opportunitv and 
life that one’s inclination is to think 
of the great man, the man who has 
fulfilled the dream 

One forgets that this famous, 
gentle man was once a poor, loncl\ 
and bewildered bo\ , once polished 
shoes in a barber’s, was once a 
tramp,a dish-washei, a da\ lahourc»‘ 
Now' and then, as \(iU sit and tilk 
with the man, and feel his philosoptn 
sink in, he seems almost like one ca' 
the old prophets who came out 
of the desert’s loneliness with a 
vision 

The parents' hard- work ini’, hum- 
ble life shaped the philosophs or the 
son The father nt\er thought of 
being an\ thing other than a plain, 
honest working man. In mg dc eenth 
and pa\ing his w'a\ The faith in 
work and ibe knowledge of v.h.it 
those “to fortune and fam< un- 
known” have added t(; the sum ot 
progress and human existence aie 
strengths Carl Sandburg had from 
his father and mcjthcr He h.is little 
patience with cheapness of mind oi 


work. Nor with intolerance He 
suspects the glib men who know all 
the answers 

People come to him and ask, 
somewhat plamtivolv “What would 
Lincoln do now^” 

“Well,” he tells them, “all I can 
sa\ for sure is that he would eat, 
sleep and think a lot cspcenlly 
the latter ’’ 

People' mean a lot to Sandburg 
he thinks of tht'm as humai. be- 
ings, not as problems or statutes 
tie IS patient with all persons with 
dreams — Lspecialh \oung writers 
(He has never forgotten the friends 
who encouraged him, and w'ho lis- 
tened to him read and sing ) He still 
goes, when he can, to the homes of 
\oung writei s or newspapermen ar J 
talks with them, his viewpoints as 
fn‘sh and vigorous as theirs 

Mtanvv'liile, he has work in the 
blue print stage which will keep him 
hiisv for \tars To come He faces the 
future with a faith from the pages 
of his fatht r’s old Swedish Hihle 
and liom his mother’s life 

“ 1 he (Chinese,” he s.ivs “ha»c a 
saving that aflcr yn a man is likt' a 
, mclle in the w'liul hut some 
times the w'lncls .ue soft and if, 
wlien a m,in comes to die, he has a 
l>o\ s heart, is th it a had thing 


to an old Scottish carpenter, I bejasteel vvnh scant tael of ten an- 
cestors on the Mayflower, and that every drop of my blood had been on 
American soil for more than two centuries He rcplic'cl “Tell me this — 
how many nights sat ye up decidin’ ye’d no be born Chinese^’’ 




H\ Robert C> Ruark 


P ossiBL'i the 
most ambi- 
tious and certainK 
tRe most successful 
piece of public re 
1 a 1 1 o n s ev cr at- 
tempted will just have been com- 
pleted, when this report reaches 
print, by a young woman who left 
her kids at home to go off on a six 
months’ salesmanship job. The kids 
were in good hands, back home 
with Granny 

This \oung lady, who is pretty 
and slight and only 28, is Queen 
Elizabeth II of England, she has 
just completed a six months’ circle 
of the globe, in oider to assure her 
loyal but distant subjects that things 
arc going well with her, and to give 
them a look at the first sovereign 
ever to visit some of their lands. She 
was assisted in this gruelling job by 
her husband, the Duke of Edin- 


Qtiecn Elizabeth's monumental 
tnp, says thii famous Ameucan 
pionalnt, ptoves that the woild 
still deuil\ loves a Royal symbol 


burgh, her Prince 
Consort and father 
of the future King 
of England 
Never was a 
more staggering 
The pair covered 
risited 14 countries. 


jaunt attempted 
50,000 miles and 
They travelled by tram, plane, ship, 
helicopter, jeep, car .ind horse-car- 
nage The complete programme for 
the Royal tour filled a closely written 
book an inch thick A year went 
into the scheduling of the trip; even 
the Queen’s walking time from ship 
to shore and from plane to car was 
worked out on a time sheet. 

The tour involved a piece of log- 
istics roughly comparable to a small 
war The Royal luggage weighed 12 
tons, and Army, Navy and Air 
Forces were deployed in supporting 
roles. The Queen had her own per- 
sonal retinue of ten household 




24 

servants, with admirals, colonels, 
majors, ladies-in-waiting dancing in 
perpetual attendance But they were 
still living out of the suitcases, and 
they never settled down long enough 
to get the laundfN done 

Elizabeth and Philip attended 185 
state functions, balls, parties, lunch- 
eons and dinner^: Thev planted 
trees, unveiled memorials, laid 
wreaths, held investitures, broadcast 
speeches, opened Parliaments Be- 
tween each function thev appeared 
in a free carnival 

Bv wav of diversicjii — diversion* 
— Her Majestv and (\)nsort dis- 
played a seemlv interest in sheep 
shearing, cricket, vvoodehopping, 
horse racing Thev attended plavs, 
ballets, a music festival and 27 dis 
plays b\ children On the Roval 
agenda were a couple ol Australian 
mines, a steel mill, a native dance in 
New Zealand, where she was svm- 
bolicallv attacked bv a Maori war- 
nor, and then given a ceremonial 
club with which to defend herself 
In Tonga she sat cross-legged un the 
ground with the mountainous 
Queen Salote while eating roast pig 
with her fingers 

The Royal couple shook about 
50,000 bands, changed costumes an 
average of four times a dav, and 
reviewed countless troops and con- 
stabularies Through it all — as this 
IS written —they never missed a 
serious engagement or fell seriously 
ill, maintaining a pace that would 
have killed an 01)mpic marathoner. 
rrovA/rl^i that pave you an 


June 

outdoor claustrophobia just to watch 
them crush each other, they con- 
formed precisely to their schedules. 

The top bdling for this grand tour 
— a good portion of which 1 wit- 
nessed in Australia and New Zea- 
land — is a double one, but it seemed 
to be agreed in the Antipodes that a 
large part of the success of the trip 
was due to Philip The throne of 
England and its Commonwealth is 
not ruled bv a Queen with a rubber- 
stamp consort It is a hard-working 
operation shared bv two people of 
equal rcsponsibilitv and ability 
Elizabeth’s sense of perfection is 
as good as that of any star actress. 
She spent hours on a special face 
make-up In Sydnev, the lighting 
svstem for a big ceremonial dinner* 
clashed with her make up, her cos- 
tume, and the seating arrangement 
The Queen, looking over the plans, 
immcdiatelv ordered the system to 
be changed Learning that winds 
are high in February and March m 
Australia, she had the hems of her 
shorter skirts weighted to thwart 
anv flirtatious brce/c 
Her wardrobe, w'hich included 
scores of long frocks for slate gather- 
ings, more than (x) special costumes 
with shoes and hats, plus 2uo pairs 
of white gloves, never presented her 
as anything but immaculate. Per- 
haps the make-up helped, but she 
never looked drawn or tired. She is 
a model of long training m studied 
public deportment Her walk is 
superb, her carnage magnificent, 
and nowadays she is as slim as a 


the readers digest 



IQS4 2S 


wand. Probably the word ' Vadiant/* 
used in every newspaper account, 
has never been more overworked. 
It IS a natural radiance. But I do 
know that the Queen is never un- 
conscious of her appearance 
One day, her handsome Australian 
equerry, Commander Michael Par- 
ker, was helping her into a limou- 
sine with a persptx dome— which 
keeps ofT the rain and still allows 
the throngs to see I Icr Majesty She 
turned to Parker to say 
“Michael, how do I look''” 

“You look like an orchid under 
cellophane. Your Majesty,” Parker 
leplied, and the Queen beam-^d like 
a maiden 

That Elizabeth realizes the full 
.inxport of being Queen was demon- 
strated in Auckland, New Zealand 
At some festivity at the Town Hall, 
It began to rain Prime Minister 
Holland seized a light plastic rain- 
coat from the nearest man at hand 
and whipped it round the dainty 
shoulders of his Queen 
Elizabeth smiled and made the 
faintest suggestion of a curtsy 
“Thank you. Sir Walter Raleigh,” 
she said 

As a critical expert on crowds 
she never stopped working On one 
occasion, in Rotorua, New Zealand, 
some Maori girls were performing 
a classic poi dance, in which the 
maidens manipulate little leather 
balls on the ends of thongs to imi- 
tate rowing the great canoes which 
brought the Maoris on the long 
voyage from Polynesia to New Zea- 


land. The Duke became fascinated 
with the subtle juggling, and asked 
the Prime Minister, Sidney Holland, 
about It. The P M. ordered some 
balls for the Duke’s inspection. 

As the Duke began to play with 
them, the crowd’s attention veered 
from the dance to Philip, who was 
having great fun with his toys. 
Quicklv the Queen turned and as 
calmly as a mother takes a break- 
able object from a child, she plucked 
the leather balls from his hands and 
directed his attention back to the 
dance 

The Duke has a homely touch his 
wife lacks, since she has been trained 
from birth to do her queenly job, 
and to do it on schedule, with a 
marked distaste for departure from 
what has been arranged. Philip has 
a habit of lagging behind to talk 
when he is interested He held up 
an entire press reception in Can- 
berra to talk to a correspondent about 
matters in which he was interested. 
He likes to laugh and he likes a 
joke, and takes himself only as seri- 
ouslv as state occasions demand. 

But the fact remains that the 
Queen is the real symbol. Millions 
thronged to see her Never in my 
life have I observed such an emo- 
tional impact of an individual on 
masses of people, or such a solidifi- 
cation of mass loyalty for common 
weal Crowds came in from the 
country and slept in the parks. 
They ate sandwich lunches and 
stood in baking heat, in the ram — 
not for hours, but for days. 



26 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


They redecorated their homes and 
bought new outfits. They spent for- 
tunes to dress their cities in bunt- 
ing and arches and decorated light- 
ing effects. Sydney alone spent 
nearly ^1,500,000 (Australian) to 
decorate the streets, and shot off 15 
tons of rockets on the evening of the 
Queen’s arrival Melbourne prob- 
ably spent more, out of sheer civic 
jealousy The humblest home in 
Australia had a Royal motif, and 
was hung with flags 
Through all this — through a tour 
that started in December, took in 
Bermuda, Jamaica, Fiji,Tonga, New 
Zealand, Australia, the Cocos Is- 
lands, Cevlon, Aden, Uganda and 
the Mediterranean, the pair proceed- 
ed, smiling, tactful, indulgent and 
regal, keeping a strict schedule and 
keeping this thought in mind Show 
the flag. And we are the flag 
By her stunning performance 
Elizabeth refuted the critics who 
attacked her tour, said royalty was 
getting too expensive, and wasn’t 
worth the ^500,000 it cost annually. 


The tour has proved, if it needed 
proof again, that the people of the 
world dearly worship a svmbol, and 
if the symbol is for good, then the 
symbol for bad has no chance against 
It. You cannot be a Communist or 
a Fascist and stand, with tears 
streaming down your face, for two 
days in the sun or rain to catch a 
fleeting glance of a voung girl who 
wears a crown Even as an American 
spectator, with a certain irreverence 
for royalty, I was deeply moved by 
what 1 saw and heard No Hitler, 
no Stalin, ever reaped this kind of 
honest and spontaneous adulation 

Maybe it was coolly and skilfully ' 
designed public relations, but Bri- 
tain’s No I Public Relations Expert 
also wept when Prime Minister^ 
Menzies said to her in Melbourne 
“You are in your own country, 
among your own people We are 
yours — all parties, all creeds ” 

As an American 1 should like 
to say 

“God save their gracious Queen » 
She IS needed by this world ” 


Soldi 

a large firm advertised in the newspapers to fill a vacancy 
on its sales staff, one applicant replied “I am at present selling 
furniture at the address below You may judge my ability as a sales- 
man if you will call in to see me at any time, pretending that you 
are intciestcd in buying furniture 

“When you come in, you can identify me by my red hair And I 
will have no way of identifying you Such salesmanship as I exhibit 
during your visit, therefore, v/ill be no more than my usual worka- 
day approach and not a special effort to impress a prospective em- 
ployer “ 

From among more than 1,500 applicants, the redhead got the job. 

— Irvmg in Go 



We all have constant opportunities to 
apply this principle in reaching sound 
conclusions Dont Get Petsonall 


A Tip on 
Sfraijilil Tliiii'Kiiii; 


By 

Stuart Chase 

IN a court of law the counsel for 
. <rl/ the defence was handed a note 
by his partner ‘‘No case. Abuse the 
plaintiff’s counsel ” The defendant 
was guilt\ on the evidence, so the 
best his counsel could do was to tr) 
to confuse the )urv by making a re 
prehensiblc character out of the 
lawvcr on the other side 
This type of argument has been 
in use a long time — so long indeed 
that It has a Latin name, argtimen- 
tum ad hominem This means to 
switch the argument fiom the issue 
to the man, and might be freciv 
translated, “CJet personal ” If a case 
IS hard to attack on its merits, attack 
the character of the man in charge 
The power to »eason accurately 
has been called the chief glory of 
man. Every day, almost every hour, 
by an astonishing process inside the 
brain, we form opinions and make 


decisions Our conclusions can be 
good, bad or indifferent, depend- 
ing upon how we have learned to 
think 

Wise men over the centuries have 
identified about 20 varieties of false 
reasoning. Argumentum ad hom^ 
mem easily heads the list. 

About a century ago Darwin and 
Huxley evolved the principles of 
evolution Many religious people 
were shocked and tremendous op- 
position developed Bishop Wilber- 
force was especially shocked, and in 
a public debate asked Huxley “Arc 
you descended from a monkey on 
your grandmother’s or your grand- 
father’s sidc^’’ This classic example 
of ad hominem brought gales of 
laughter Rather than debate the 
scientific evidence, the Bishop evad- 
ed the issue by resorting to a quip 
about Huxley’s ancestors 

Some stars ago I was asked to 
testify in a legal action in Bridge- 
port, Connecticut I had been work- 
ing on population trends in the 
United States, and a committee 
wanted me to apply the formulas to 
forecast the growth of Bridgeport. 
The case had to do with a new city 
reservoir The lawyer for the other 
side began by questioning my fig- 
ures This was right and proper. 
Finding no serious discrepancies, he 
shuffled his notes, took a step in my 
direction and demanded, “Mr. 
Chase, were you ever a Techno- 
crat^’’ 

What this had to do with the 

^7 



2S 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


population prospects of Bridgeport 
was a trifle obscure; but it was in- 
tended to discredit me as a witness. 
Technocrats were supposed to be 
crackpots I said I’d never been a 
Technocrat. At the peak of the 
Technocracy craze, I went on, I had 
written an article about it. Thus I 
managed to meet this ad hominem 
tactic, but plenty of other witnesses 
do not 

There are all sorts of ad hominem 
cases We ha\e all heard the com- 
plaint that Smith’s plan for traffic 
control in our town can’t be any 
good because Smith never went be 
yond primary school This conclu- 
sion saves us the trouble of studying 
the plan We all know the father 
who laughs off his son’s idea as to 
why the family car coughs like a 
wounded gorilla. The notion must 
be worthless, Father thinks, b^*cause 
the boy is so young But he may 
have a passion for internal-combus- 
tion engines 

There is another Latin term 
which links up here * non secjuitur, 
“it does not fallow ’’ Because a 


man has his faults it does not follow 
that what he has produced, spon- 
sored or IS associated with is worth- 
less By the same token, because the 
man is beyond praise, it does not 
follow that his every idea is so good 
it need not be looked into 
Ad hominem^ once grasped, alerts 
us to many pitfalls in thinking 
These da\s wc can spot it snarling 
up television and radio discussion 
programmes, news stones, editorials, 
political speeches — especiall\ politi- 
cal speeches We find it reappearing 
in the arguments of our famdies 
and our friends l^ut let me warn 
vou not to be over- zealous in cor- 
recting famih and friends Start 
slowly, as in a golf swing Nobody 
likes to be told he doesn't know 
how to think Which one of us, 
however, isn’t glad to be able to 
think a little straighter^ 

To avoid unfair and sometimes 
disastrous decisions, squeeze the per- 
sonality out of an issue Ask “Is 
the idea sound, regardless of its ori- 
gin^ Am I judging the matter on 
its merits, or am I getting personal?’’ 




Beginner s English 

J. FRitM) of mine had eight children in ii years, and I believe the 
first moment she had to centre her full attention on one of them 
came the night 12-ycar-old Sally tried on her Confirmation dress. 
“Sally, darling,” her mother said, after a long, loving look, “I think 
you’re beautifuP” The youngster’s face lit up Then her mother 
added itasingly, ‘T)f course, I’m prejudiced ’’ 

Sally’s face fell “Oh, Mother,*’ she wailed, “not again!'' 

— Contributed by Ktith,irine I.uwicnce 



A new theory, on the couse of big 
rain mi snow storms 



WHAT MAKES 
IT RAIN? 

By Saville Davis 

M ure nonsense is talked about 
the weather than about anv 
other topic This story, then, must 
be nonsense!^ Or is it? 

The man in the witness-box is 
Dr E G Bowen He is not a me- 
teorologist, but a physicist with an 
international reputation in quite 
another field— micro-waves. He be- 
came interested in what is hopefully 
called “rain-making,” and he found 
out some things 

Dr Bowen is prepared to tell you 
precisely when to look for the next 
really heavy rain or snow stoims. 
He won’t tell you where they will 
hit — they will fall wherever there 
are‘ clouds ready to yield them at 
that time 

Last August Dr. Bowen was 


working in Sydney at the Austra- 
lian Government’s radiophysics 
laboratory, of which he is Director. 
While investigating rainfall he no- 
ticed that the figures for Sydney 
from 1902 to 1944 showed excep- 
tionally heavy downpours on identi- 
cal dates every six to eight years or 
so For example, in January there 
was a really heavy fall every six to 
eight years on the 12th or 13th. 
Also on the 22nd or 23rd Also 
around the 31st And on some 18 
or 20 other fixed dates throughout 
the vear 

Did this mean anything? 

Dr Bowen checked back another 
50 years Same peaks of rain, same 
dates 

How about other continents^ Fig- 
ures came in from South Africa, 
("hile, Britain, the U S A —50-year 
records On Dr Bowen’s charts ap- 
peared, one by one, the same dates, 
the same peaks, for all these coun- 
tries 

This was odd The weather pat- 
tern travels round the earth at 
several hundred miles a day. You’d 
expect any disturbance to follow a 
slow time path from one continent 
to another 

It wasn’t so Though they hit dif- 
ferent parts ot the earth’s surface in 
dilTerent years, these big downfalls 
were pouring out of the clouds on 
the same special days of the year, 
all round the globe 

It was time to draw some con- 
clusions. These effects, Dr. Bowen 

29 


Condensed from The Christian rcience Monitor 



so 


THE READER'S DIGEST 


reasoned, could not be due to any 
terrestrial cause. They must, then, 
be due to some outside factor which 
recurs on the same days of the year 
and so is linked to the earth’s orbit 
round the sun This eliminated such 
things as sunspots, perturbations of 
the moon’s orbit and conjunctions, 
whose occurrence is not related to 
the earth's orbit 

There was onlv one other possi- 
bility Dr Bowen could turn up — 
meteor showers He assembled the 
dates when the earth regularly tra- 
verses paths of meteor dust, and 
compared them with his charts The 
dates fell ]ust days hefote the 
peal^s in rainfall The correlation 
was loo clear and too e\tensi\c for 
coincidence. 

Meteor showers arc inert dust, 
the remains of the trails of expirtd 
comets The particles range from 
the size of marbles down to the fin- 
est dust They arc made up mosth 
of Silicon dioxide (sand) and iron 
oxide (speaking loosclv, rust) 

The dust trails are alwavs found 
in the same places because of the 
laws which hold this uniycrse to- 
gether The earth passes through 
them on the same days each year 

At this point, evidence goes to 
work on a theory 


When the dust meets the earth’s 
atmosphere, some 50 or 60 miles 
high, the bigger particles have 
enough energy to burn themselves 
up by friction We sec them as 
streaks in the sky, as “shooting 
stars ” The finei particles, however, 
don’t ha\e enough energy to burn, 
and they sift down through the 
thickening air 

At rnan\ places over the surface 
ot the earth they find no clouds, or 
clouds which hold little moisture, 
and they pass with no effect But 
there will be places where the cloud 
sv stems have piled up 40,000 to 
50,000 feet, gorged with water 
\a|)our and ripe for “seeding " The 
meteor dust would appeal to act in 
much the same manner as the silyn- 
lodidc crystals sown from aircraft 
In artificial rain-makers the crys- 
t.ils start the process of converting 
water vapour in the clouds to snow 
01 rain, and the process then con- 
tinues by Itself 

Obviously all this doesn’t mean 
that you c.in look at vour dates for" 
meteor showers and predict rain 
All you can say is that, if further 
study bears out Dr Bowen’s con- 
clusions, your area can expert heayy 
rain 01 snow on certain dates — when 
cloud conditions are favourable. 


Overheard 

Msn to blonde, at a bar “F^ardon me, but 1 am writing a telephone 
book and I’d like to include your number ’’ —The Hollywood Reporter 

One girl to another “Both he and his car are equipped with auto- 
matic clutches.” —Ohw State Journal 



H\ Abraham Stone, M D 


I suiM'osi It W.1S like one of those 
I set rctar\ -boss alTairs She was 
working in mv laboratory Often 
we worked side b/ side late into the 
evening, and even at week-ends I 
had no special feeling for her, nor 
she forme, I am sure, but gradually 
we drifted into a ph)sical relation- 
ship Last week mv wife surprised 
us in the laboratory — and now I 
just don’t know what to do ” 

The man was a scientist who had 
made notable contributions to his 
special field of research He was 
highly respected in his community, 
and was the father of three children 
Now he was bewildered, and felt 
that his home and family life — 
everything he had built and valued 
— were in danger “How did I ever 
get into this situation?” he asked 
“Does It happen often?” 

Infidelity in marriage is more 

A PiONrtR in the fitld of marriage tduia- 
tion, Dr Abraham Stonr , with his late wih , 
Dr Hannah Stone, wrote 4 Marriage 
Manual, a standard text on sc\ and marriagt 


common than most people wish to 
believe The most disturbing fact in 
the kinsev reports was its high in- 
cidence — among some 19,000 people 
interviewed, one oin of every two 
married men and one out of every 
four married women up to the age 
of 40 admitted extramarital relations. 

There are societies in which men 
aic permitted b^ law and custom to 
have more than one wife, or to have 
concubines if they can afford them. 
Our culture, however, maintains 
that marnage shall be monogamous, 
when a man and woman marry, 
they are required by law, religion 
and social custom to remain faithful 
to each other Moreover, in a study 
of 148 different societies, Dr. George 
Murdock, the anthropologist, has 
found that in only five are adulter- 
ous relationships condoned “Marital 
fidelity,” he states, “is one of the 
mam buttresses of any social struc- 
ture ” 

Why, then, is infidelity so wide- 
spread 


V 



Some of those who have studied 
the problem hold that man, like 
other animals, is promiscuous by 
nature. “Mosi of the male’s extra- 
marital activitv,” says Dr Kinsey, 
“is undoubtedly a product of his 
interest in a varietv of experience.” 
Most males, he states, would agree 
that variety is attractive per se, 
whether it be in music, recreation, 
literature, food or sexual partners 
If there were no social restrictions, 
he concludes, man would be promis- 
cuous throughout his life 
Women are less interested in sex- 
ual experience with more than one 
man But how much of this differ- 
ence in attitude is due to basic dif- 
ferences in biological and psycho 
logical needs, and how much to 
training from childhood^ Some say 
that under certain cultural condi- 
tions women, too, would be inter- 
ested in varied experience C S 
Ford and F. A Beach, in their book 
Patterns of Sexual Behaviour^ state 
“In societies in w^hich a variety of 
sexual liaisons is permitted, women 
avail themselves of their opportunity 
as eagerly as do men ” 

But does the desire for varietv 
justify the extramarital affair ^ There 
IS an important dififercnce between 
seeking variety in food, music or 
recreation and seeking it in sexual 
partners. A husband’s extramarital 
sexual relations cause involvement 
of others — the wife, the other 
woman» the children. 

Many psychiatrists regard infidel- 
ity as an emotional disturbance or 


a neurotic tendency. “Psychiatrists 
feel that immaturity and fngidii) 
are the basic causes of infidelity,” 
says Dr. Edward Strecker. And Dr. 
Frank Caprio, in his book Marital 
Infidelity, writes “Infidelity, like 
alcoholism or drug addiction, is an^ 
expression of a deep basic disotder 
of chaiacter which has its roots in 
childhood experiences ” 

This theory can explain only 
certain forms of infidelity It may 
apply to the compulsive philan- 
derer, the person who has an irre- 
sistible urge tor new romantic con- 
quests But not all men or all 
women who stray from the marital 
bed are immatuie, neurotic or have 
a charactei disorder 

A major cause of infidelity is mar- 
riage without mutual understand- 
ing, without an awareness of the 
partner’s physical and emotional 
needs, without love “Where there 
i> marriage without love,” wrote 
Benjamin Franklin, “there will be 
love without marriage 
A wayward husband entangled in 
an extramarital affair recently said 
to me “I could have been perfectly 
happy with my wife, but I never got 
from her what I wanted most in our 
marriage — affection, approval, occa- 
sional praise I wanted her to want 
me, to need me, but she constantly 
rejected me. Eventually I sought 
those satisfactions elsewhere. When 
I met the other woman I thought I 
had found the warmth I needed ” 
This was not mere rationalization 
on his part When I talked with the 



^954 


rm CASS AGAINST marital m^fiDEUiy 


later, she too was able to recog- 
nize the degree to which her cool- 
ness towards her husband’s needs 
had been a cause of his affair. “As I 
sec It now,” she said sadly, “I think 
1 drove him into her arms ” 

Under the same conditions a wife 
may become susceptible to an out- 
side affair Not long ago a woman 
ruld me that her marriage was, in 
the main, successful she had two 
children, she was interested in her 
home, in her husband’s work and 
in the activities of her neighbour- 
hood But her husband was phleg- 
matic and undemonstrative 
“In the evening,” she complain- 
ed, “he wants only his dinner and 
his newspaper. If I make any affec- 
UCiFwte gesture he just pats me on 
the head, as if I were a child or a 
pet If he would only make his 
touch mean something * I know he 
loves me, but I need to be loved 
with some passion ” 

Here the soil was ready for out- 
side r..mance, and romance sprouted 
rapidly when she met another man 
luring a seaside holiday with the 
children The marriage would prob- 
ably have broken up if she had not 
realized in time the dangers in- 
volved She, and later her husband, 
sought professional aid In time she 
came to realize how much deeper 
and more meaningful her husband’s 
love and loyaltv were than a casual 
physical attraction, and he how 
necessary it was for him to be more 
attentive and expressive if he was 
to hold his wife’s interest 


Some psychiatrists claim that a 
casual extramarital affair may serve 
as a safety valve and preserve a mar- 
riage which might otherwise break 
up Yet from my quarter century 
of counselling on marital problems 
I cannot recall a single case where 
infidelity has strengthened the 
marital bond Seldom docs cither 
husband or wife find lasting emo- 
tional satisfaction in an extramarital 
relationship In fact, it usually leads 
to deep personal conflicts and family 
disruption 

Even if it IS unknown to the 
other mate, an act of infidelity is 
still a disintegrating force There is 
always a feeling of guilt and the 
fear of detection on the part of the 
offender, a need for inventing ex- 
cuses and complex explanations 
With the effort to deceive, a wedge 
is driven between husband and wife 
which may in time become an im- 
penetrable wall 

When the affair is known, there 
IS emotional injury that often leads 
to a broken home It is rare for a 
wife to accept her husband’s un- 
faithfulness openly, and even rarer 
for a husband to be tolerant of 
his wife’s infidelity Few men or 
women can fail to feel deep resent- 
ment and deeper hurt when faced 
with the fact that the mate has pre- 
ferred, even transiently, another 
partner 

And what of the effect upon the 
children within a family^ The be- 
wilderment, the sense of insecurity, 
of shame, of grief which children 



mE‘READER*S DIGEST 


feel when they learn of their father’s 
or mother’s extramarital affair fre- 
quently lead to emotional injury 
which ma\ leave lasting scars A 27- 
yearold patient told me that at the 
age of r i she had found her mother 
in the embrace of anothci man It 
was because the episode had so 
haunted her for 16 \ears, had so 
profoundK shaken her attitude to 
wards marriage and familv lite, that 
she came to seek aid 
The primarv purposes of marriage 
are to satisf\ three basic human 
needs the need for the securitv of 
affection, companionsh'p, “belong 
mg”, the need tor the gratifit ation 
of the sexual urge, the need for re 
production The famiK prosides a 
sociallv and moralK sanctioned unit 
for the fulfilment of these needs 
Families cannot, howeser, be held 


together merely by the pressures 
law, religion and society. Marital 
stability depends on the cohesive 
power of an inner harmon\ between 
husband and w'lfe built on mutual 
love and comradeship Such unit\ 
cannot be achieved without fidelit) 

The solution, then, to the extni- 
marital problem is to make marriage 
and family life so satisfvmg, so ful- 
filling that neither partner will want 
to stra\ H\ cultivating sound atti 
tudes towards sex .md rnairiage and 
b\ icali/ing the values of a happy 
famiK marital fidchtv can be mam- 
t lined 

Successful maniage requires char 
acrer and effort, an adherence to 
basic social values and to the [ire 
cepts of the Childen Rule OftcM 
re(]iiires self discipline Is a good 
marriage worth it ^ I behese it is 


Anuvos to “Test Yourself^ 

rSec (12' 

i \bour irimiiics past ten 2 Si\ inches ; IwxKi Weil'S 
4 Llutncit,' 5 Relalisuy ^5 ( ^4 should lollow 7 'I hir 

teen [iourids 8 fast Had situations otten glow W'oisc i( not 
repaired f)rompfl\ 10 hrea 1 tlie scxcn-ijuari (an fill the loin quart 
can Thrfiw .usa\ the vvntr in the lour tjuart (an 'Iransfei th^ re 
maimng ihret tjiiarts from the siveneniart can to the louripiait 
can Full rhe se\(n-quart c.in and f)oiir one quart into the* lour quart 
can, hding ir Six quarts will remain m the seven quart tan 


(.AkMr,o, asked whuh he (onsidered the rnosi im 
portant lietor in industry, labour, c.ipital or brains, replied, 
“Which is tlu most important leg ot a three-legged stool?” 



An American Prelate’s Answer 


to His Country’s Critics 


By 


His Eminence Francis, Caidinal Spellman 
XrLhbijhop ()1 Ntw Xoik 


This appeal for European under- 
standing Is f>om an addiesf made 
by Caidinal Spellman in Rtu^seU 

A \i\iiir which luis sul)|c\tcd 
America to widespread criti- 
cism in Europe* has been its Con- 
gressional incjuirics into the intiltra- 
tion otCioscrnmcnt l)\ Communists 
Judging tiom the Insterical tone 
ot the ciiticism, one w'ould imagine 
that It IS no longer possible in 
America to keep one’s good n.ime 
Nothing could be further from the 
truth We arc still a free people who 
cherish freedom No American un- 
contam mated In (ximmunism has 
lost his good name because of C'on- 
gressional hearings on un-Amcrican 
activities 

However, there are man\ indi- 
viduals who have seriously compro- 
mised themselves l)\ a llat rctusai to 
state whether thev arc now or have 
been Communists It is impossible 
for me to understand why any 


American should lefuse to declare 
himself free of Communist affilia- 
tion, unle^<; he has something to 
bide In that event he deserves to be 
held in suspicion because he con- 
stitutes a tlireat to our country’s 
ficcdom, which has been won at too 
great a cost to be lightlv lost There 
IS no reason to doubt the aims of the 
('ommumsts The historv of Com- 
munist ireacherv all over the world 
IS tragic and the sub)ugation by 
them oi one countrv after another 
makes grim reading 
Our Amt rican Ciov ernment would 
be utterK naive if it did not take all 
the neecssarv steps to preserve its 
own existence It has the right to 
knenv the kind ot men it employs, 
h has a right to expect that its citi- 
zens will not have a divided loyalty 
The Communist has such a divided 
lo)alty and he has given abundant 
proot of the treachery such a divided 
lo\altv spawns We have seen how 
he bides his time, using all the 
words and forms of free men only 
to mask his evil intent until occa- 


55 



^6 THE READER^S DIGEST 


sion is given him for betrayal We 
do not intend to give him that oc- 
casion if we can pi event it 
Congressional inquiries into Com- 
munist actnitics in the United 
States are not the result of any mad 
legislative whim There aie strong 
reasons for these inquiries and we 
Americans thank Ciod that they 
have begun whik thcic is still time 
to do something about it In too 
many in')tanccs the awareness of 
Communist intrigue has come w'hen 
it is too late The anguished pro- 


tests against “McCarthyism” ar^^*" 
not going to dissuade Americans 
from their desire to see Communists 
exposed and removed from positions 
where the) can carry out their ne- 
faiious plans 

If American prestige is going to 
suffer in Euiopc because of our un- 
derstandable desire to keep our free 
society immune from Communist 
subversion, then it seems it is more 
of a reflection upon Euiopc an 
standards of honour and patriotism 
than upon the American 


Finish Line 

7m v\oMA\ With the bulging shopping bag panteef to hei sear in the 
cinema )ust as the feature was rcaihing its most c\i iling [K)irit Once 
settled, she ignored the screen in order to dig thiough hei bag, obviously 
in search of sf)mt special parcel 

One by one. she removed the packages, unwrapped them and cxplorcil 
their contents, while her neighbours strained to hear the dialogue abo\( 
the crackling of paper 1 his per'^istent, rustling starch continued until the 
man directly before her turned and fixe’d the woman w'lth an infuriated 
stare 

“Lady,” he asked, “what are you deling back there --budding a nest?^” 

- Ffif Sutu/i/tn I‘u\t 


Worst Feai Confirmed 

THE Wright brothers ann versary celebration at Kitty Hawk — just 
about the fancie't air-show' ever st.igeel in the Uniteei States - a gn/zled 
old-timer, who was unaccustomed to such modern air shenanigans, 
watched with open mouth as four Sabrejets thundered towards the 
Wright Kiemorial Monument in a diamond formation at sevcial hundred 
miles per hour 7’hc\ flew in such a steady pattern that they seemed to 
be* attached to one another Just as they got over the monument the jets 
zoomed straight upwards, then suddenly went off in four different 
directions 

At this, the old timer paled and exclaimed “Dcrn, I knowed that 

thing was gonna come apart - Ch.nlotte North C.irohnn. News 



Are children snow-white angels — or little barbarians'^ 
Loo\ bac\ on your own childhood . 


I Remember Me 



• • 4 POB\BL\ the 
Xss. greatest in- 
justice we do to chil- 
dren IS our idealiza- 
tion of them In the 
modern book, there iS 
never the neccssit) to 
reform the child, it 
comes into the world 
pure as snow and the 
characteristics it '‘uh- 
sequentU develops 
merely reflect its en- 
vironment W'hat is 
asked IS the reform 
of Its parents, prctcr- 
ablv with the aid of a psvchiatrist 
RcLcntlv I heard a torum panel 
debate the c|ucstion “What creates 
hostility m children^” The answers 
included, as one might expect, emo- 
tional disturbances in the home, 
over-demands on the )oung, favour- 
itism shown one child over another 
. . . What 1 missed was the siOiple 
statement that what creates hostilit) 
in children is — childhood Children 
are naUnally hostile 
They are hostile to other children 


and hostik to adults, 
including their 
parents Little boys 
fight each other at the 
drop of a hat Little 
girls quarrel vio- 
lently, taking their 
dolls and going home 
in tears All normal 
children regard adults 
in general as natural 
enemies The fact is 
that children are, 
after all, little ani- 
\ mals, vvhoonlv slowly 

evolve (if they ever 
do) inU) civili/td human beings 
The parental and ( ducational func- 
tion IS so to influence and govern 
these Imlc barbaiians that a civi- 
lized idult can endure living with 
them, and that thev may also, in 
time, become civilized adults. Civi- 
lization, as Freud pointed out, is not 
natural It involves cultivation and 
taming And taming, however gently 
accomplished, requires authority. 

Lest someone at this point express 
shocked horror at my attitude to- 



Condensed from Ladies’ Home Journal 


37 



THE READERS DIGEST 


wards the little ones, let me confess 
that what I know about children is 
mostly derived from what I remem- 
ber from having once been a child 
From vivid memory 1 can assert that 
if my parents and teachers had not 
succeeded m blocking main ot mv 
natural tendencies —b\ a combina- 
tion of force, reward and the in- 
vocation of authoritv, hum in and 
divine — I would have been a private 
and public scoiiige 
Yet I w^as ccrtainlv “normal" — 
formidablv healthv, bursting with 
energv and reasonablv biight And 
despite the fact thatmv mother died 
when I was seven, 1 had a happy 
and affectionate childhood home 
Mother was succeeded bv mv lather's 
sister, Aunt Elizabeth, 2u \ears his 
senior She w'as a genius with chil- 
dren, having learned much from 
bringing up her own Her genius 
consisted in rcallv liking mv brother, 
mv sistci anfl mvself, while "taking 
no nonsense" Irom us whatsoever 
In Aunt Lizzie's e(>smos, home 
and school vveie be levolent despot- 
isms where t hi Id re n behaved them- 
selves A stickle r {o^ firdc r and clean- 
liness, she had not the slightest in- 
tention of “wearing herself to the 
bone" picking up and cleaning i^p 
after disorderlv children When vve 
were big enough to reach them, we 
made our own beds If we rushed 
with muddv feet upon an immacu- 
late floor, Aunt Liz/ae would direct 
our attention to the mop and make 
us use It. When vve played with our 
toys, we were required to put them 


June 

away afterwards, in the cupboard 
where they belonged 
Aunt Lizzie held the opinion, 
highlv heretical today, that the 
comfort and convenience of adults 
should be considered Her response 
to anv child who said “1 won’t" was 
grim and aiitomatic — a stinging 
h.md applied to the spot designed 
for that purpose Aunt I i/zie never 
nagged — she acted She nevci 
argued —she judged 

\\ hv did wx so love her (though 
vve sometimes shook impotent fists 
behind her back) that when w'c get 
together todav, [larcnts and grand 
parents ourselves, w-e alwavs «pcak 
ot her, and the thought ol her al 
wavs nitikcs us grin" 

For one thing, she saw right* 
through us It w<is futile to Ik to 
Aunt Liz/ie ‘Now th.ii voii ve 
iinishcd that cock .md hull storv," 
she would sav , "what ? cully hap 
pened"' It wasn't that she thought 
the cfKk and hull sloiv a ternhlr 
crime She cvpcded it She knew 
vve were natural liars She unda- 
stocfd u> I hat was a c comfort 
She was as prumpt w'lth lewMrds 
as with punislimcnt \\ h(‘n I got a 
report card with fr)ur A’s, vve had 
uc cream and angel cake for sup 
per, in rnv honour, and she didn't 
chide me for being rather smug 
about the achievement 
Where, in this ordered and bc- 
nevolentlv controlled life, did we 
“work olT our tensions" and “un- 
block our aggression"? 

Wc worked them off in the 



^954 


I REMEMBER ME 


39 


woods, back yards, barns and streets. 
“Supervised play” was confined to 
a neighbour’s occasional glance 
from a sitting-room window. We ex- 
pressed part of our rebellion against 
law bv defying the laws of nature 
jumping out of hav-lofts, with an 
umbrella for a parachute, trying 
to walk the tightrope of a knife- 
edgccl rooftree, skating on thin ice 
C^isualtics were numerous — I can 
naidlv remember mvscit between 
the ages of nine and 12 without a 
bandage or a scab 
In the wild, barbarian holiday 
hours wc did mam things of which 
our parents would not have ap- 
proved It was a ciinoiislv dual 
l,ifc • the kind but firm scvciitv of 
home and school, the unbridled 


private and herd life — a combina- 
tion of healthful care and healthy 
neglect But thc) complemented 
each other 

When we came home exhausted 
to have our wounds bound up 
(matter-of-factly “If vou will do 
such things, you must take the con- 
sequences,” and ouch, the iodine 
home was shelter and haven Then 
wc were grateful grateful for Aunt 
Lizzie’s hot gingerbread, for stories 
Father read 11s, for peace and se- 
curity Grateful, in short, for order 
and CIV ilization, w'hich tangibly 
paid off 

And so, before we rush to psy- 
chiatrists about our children’s or our 
own “complexes,” let us remember 
what vve once were ourselves 


Cartoon Quips 

Smaii bos, brtathltssly, to father “You know that big plate-glass 
WH low the WiKons used to have^” - rost-H.»ii S\naicate 

Biondl BFAi^Tv HI fcstaurint, as escort studies bill “You look ill Is it 
some thing I ate —Collier's 

Si(,n: at end of winding, precipitous cliflside road RESUME 

*\ rHINCi —Thi Saturday Eientn^ Post 

[R oi BiUDt to vv'edding guest “What do you mean ‘losing a 
daughttr'^ Where do >ou think rhcy’re going to livc^” 

— The 4mei'can Le/fion Magrzme 

Garage attendant to woman driver of badlv battered car “Sorry, 
lady, wc just wash cars — vve don’t iron them ” —True 

RECEBiioNisr to visitor “t)h yts, he’s been expecting you — in fact, 
he just left” — Cbi cago liibune-New York Nev^s S\ndicate 

Anouishii) husband, at information booth of crowded department 
store “Have you seen anything of a small, plump, blonde woman spend- 
ing money like a drunken sailor?” — Kmg Peaiures 



A noted doctor-wnter gives hts prescription for avoiding 
"Private Enemy Number One” 


How to Stop 

WORRYING 


liy A f (jff)TliH \uthtjr ol "Iht “Kt\s ol thi IvinKiloin 


II LIONS (jt |)(0[)lc U( IxsLt 
1)V .1 secret cium\ ri spon- 
sible foi more edsiullRs .uul oi cater 
sulltriiii; than almost an\ other 
scourge Its name is Wonv As 
medical men know, wori\ can actii- 
all\ induce organic disease And 
even when u docs not, it can, l)V 
devout mg our cMurg\ in unproduc 
tivc wavs, unckimiiK health, ten- 
der litc intolei<il)l\ miscralilc and 
shorten it b\ \cais 

Vet woir\, igainst which the 
wonder drugs arc useless, is cjiiitc 
curable by th( indivnliud himself 
Worr\ lies m our minds, mote otten 
than not the result ot simple mis- 
direction ot oui im igination Bv 
learning to control our processes of 
thought v\c can put wori> in its 
proper place and make the world we 
live in cheertul instead ot gloomv 
In setting out to achieve this con- 
trol, the first popular tallaev of 
which we must rid ourselves is that 


worrv is a peculiant\ of the weak, 
the lailurcs On the contiary, worrv 
may be a sign of potential strength, 
proof that a man caies about life ard 
wants to make something worth 
while of his career Men who have 
achieved the greatest heights, whose 
names are immortal, have been in- 
stinctive worriers ^ ct they have 
nearl) alwavs had to contend, at 
some stage of then hvv,s, with men- 
tal strain, and have taught them- 
selves to ov Cl come it 

(m.irles Spurgeon, the celebrated 
ic)th-ecntLirv English preacher, con- 
fessed that when he was fii st oliliged 
to speak m public he w on icd for 
weeks beforehand, even to the ex- 
tent of hoping he would break a 
leg before the fateful occasion The 
resuh was that when he entered the 
pulpit he was so exhausted b\ wony 
and tension that he made a poor 
showing. 

Then one day Spurgeon faced up 





HOW TO STOP WORRYING 


to the situation. “What is the worst 
thing that can happen to me during 
rc\\ sermon^” he asked himself 
Whatever it might be, he decided, 
the heavens would not fall He had 
been magnifving a personal problem 
into a world-shaking disaster When 
he viw his woir\ in proper pcrspec- 
ti\c, he found that he spoke much 
better, sini|)lv because he had not 
distracted his rnind with empty 
Icars He estnlualK be(.amt the 
outstanding [)rcaLher of his time 
Wc should look 1)11 worry as a 
manifcst.ition of nervous intensity, 
md then fore a potential source of 
lTo<)d Onlv when this latent loree 
exhausts itselt fiuitlessK on unreal 
problems docs it haim us The rein- 
tdV is to accept woriies as part of 
out life and learn to handle them 
bv redirecting the energy we arc 
misusing into produetne channels 
This is easier if we make a list 
of the tangible things that worry us 
When thev aic down on paper v^e 
rcah/.e how main of them arc sague, 
indefinite and futile An estimate of 
what most people worrv about runs 
as fcdlows Things that never hap 
pen 40 |)er cent Things o\ei and 
past rh.it can’t be changed b\ all the 
worrv 111 the world 50 per ecni 
Needless health worries 12 per 
cent Pettv miscellaneous worries ^ 
ten per cent Real, legitimate wor- 
ries eight per cent 
If we studv our worries, keeping 
our sense of proportion, at least 
some of them should be eliminated 
What we imagine most easily, for 


example, what wc dread, in reality 
rarely comes to pass. 

One evening at an airpc^rt 1 found 
m\sclf next to a >oung man who 
was meeting his fiancee Presently 
It was announced that the plane wc 
were awaiting had been held up 
b\ bad weather It was half an hour, 
then an hour overdue The young 
man’s agitation increased It was 
not difficult to ^ee that he was pic- 
turing some horrible disaster 

Pinallv 1 felt compelled to speak 
to him 1 knew it was useless simply 
to tell him to stop worrying In- 
stead, I set up other pictures, asking 
whom he was expecting, what the 
girl w »s like, what she would be 
wealing Soon he wms telling me all 
about his fiancee, how they had 
met, and so on In a few minutes 
his mind was so full of other things 
that he had crowded worry out — 
indeed, the [)lane came in before he 
realized it 

lunancial worries, on the other 
hand, are real enough and constitute 
a consider.ible part of all human 
anxieties I believe there is only one 
wav to solve them -provided we arc 
alreadv using our resources to the 
best advant.ige I’hat is to apply 
1 horeairs famous exhortation: 
“Simjilif), simplify” ThorcauL 
founcl that by cutting down hisj'^' 
needs to the minimum he was ablci ' 
to savour life to the full, undis- 
traeted by earcs consccjucnl upon^ 
crying to satisfy superfluous desires. 
With Socrates, who had applied the 
same remedy 2,000 years earlier. 



THE READER^S DIGEST 


Thoreau could exult *TIow many 
things I can do without*” Yet few 
men have led fuller, richer lives 
One of the most contented men 
I know IS an old fisherman whose 
sole possessions are a battered boat 
and his little shack on the mud 
flats. Completelv at the mercy of 
wind and weather, indifTcrent to 
money, cherishing only his inde- 
pendence and his freedom, he mani- 
fests atwavs a scicne, sublime tun 
quillity — a perfect example tor those 
of us who worry ourselves to death 
seeking material possessions, striv- 
ing desperately to insulate ourselves 
against the hardships and misfor 
tunes that mav he ahead For worry 
ne ver robs to morrovy of its sorrow, 
irdhly^aps today of its strength 
Self-£ity IS the root of many of 
our worries When I was practising 
medicine in London one ot my pd' 
tients, a young married woman, was 
stricken with infantile paralysis She 
was sent to a good hospital, where it 
soon became apparent that she was 
responding to treatment and would 
eventually reco\er Some weeks 
later I received a visit from her hus- 
band In a state of intense nervous 
upset, he complained of sleepless- 
ness and inability to concentrate 
After a check-up I found nothing 
whatever the matter with him hue 
when I suggested that he get back 
to his job he turned on me funouslv. 
“My wife is seriously ill And you 

8 set me to go on as though noth- 
had happened Haven’t you any 
ing for me?*' The basic cause of 


f$^e 

his worry was self-pity, masquerad- 
ing as concern for his wife. 

For self-cprnmiscration there is 
only one answer We must effect a 
levolution m our lives by which, 

, instead of seeii|jg ourselves as the 
^ centre of existence, we turn our 
. thoughts towards others and come 
^ thus to realize our true place, as' 
members of a famiK, community 
and nation Inhere arc many ways 
b\ which wc can come to sec our 
difficulties in true perspective 
Andic Gidc played the piano he 
found that his worries became in- 
signihcant in the harmony of gicat 
musiL Tolstoy, contemplating the 
sunsets on the steppes, felt ashamed 
to concentrate on his own obsessions 
when there was so much beauty^ in 
the world Sir Winston Churchill, 
burdened with the cares ot the free 
world, took time off from war to 
paint a landscape * 

Blit tlje finest antidote to v yorr yas 
^ork Lawrenc^rtiTArabia was one 
ot the most brilliant men of action 
this century has produced. His 
mother has described how, after his 
failure at the Peace Conference to 
fulfil his promises to the Arabs, he 
would sit entire mornings in the 
same position, without moving and 
with the same blank expression on 
his face Worry over his defeat trans- 
formed him from a man of action 
into a brooding, lifeless shadow. His 
eventual self-cure was achieved bv 
translating this wasting energy into 
creative effort. He set oyt to write 
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 


4S 


^954 

“It IS not work that kills men,” 
wrote Henr\ Ward Bccchcr “Ir is 
worry Work is healthy, \oii can 
haidK put more upon a man than 
he can bear Worrv is rust upon the 
blade " 

Lionel Barrvmorc, the distin- 
guished actor, now over 70, gives as 
his [)rcscription tor a long and happ\ 
li«*c Keep bus\ Hi sa\s “I go 
along getting the most out of hie 
on a da\'loda\ basi^ I don't j^voirv 
about tomorrow, and I don't c.iiej 
whtil happened \estcrda\ Oiuc \ou$ 
suirt thintinj^"aboLit lite and its^ 
problems, and begin vvonving over 
the luture or it gi citing the past,i 
\oirre hkcK to become eonlused L 
hgtiic it a person docs his vvoik 
vVcirand extracts all he can trom 
the present hcMl have as happ\ a 
life as he’s supposed to have ” B\ 
idling a wav the houis or wasting 
them on unproductive time fillers 
whieh do not fullv oceiipv our at 
teiition or energies we leave the 
dex)r open tor worry 


When troubles presented them- 
selves, my old Scottish grandmother 
would remark with a shake of her 
head “What cannot be cured must 
l)e endured Then she would smile 
and add “It’s the Lord's will ” 

Worrv, in the final analvsis, is a'; 
torm of atheism, a denial of the j 
human need of Cioel It is like say- ' 
mg “1 shall never gel the better of 
this, for there is no CJod to help 
me ’’ T'hc good Lord in His daily 
conversations wa** always warning 
His listeners against this particular 
lack of faith Altei an enumeration 
of the various woriies abemt the 
fiituri with wdiieh men and women 
hamss then inincL, He said “Take 
lluicloic no thought for the mor- 
row “ 

No wiser philosophv could be 
evolved tor i sell tormented human 
itv If we follow It triistfully in all 
Its [iiavcrful im[)liCc,tions, we shall 
raise ouiselves bevond the reach of 
IVn lie Lnemv Number One and 
know true pi.iec of mind 




Getting into the Act 

Kwf’s admirers havi a speeial tiding for him, and at a malincc 
at New York’s Palace Ihcatrc two ddeily women showed their friendli- 
ness IK an uiUiaditional m inner Mulw ly through his one-man perform- 
ance, at the point when Kaye came down to the f(X)tlights, sat on the 
apron of the stage and chatted with his audience, he noticed that these 
w'omen were putting on ihcir hats and ce)jts fie was about to kid them 
for going w'hen, to his amazement, he saw them coming down towards 
him “Forgive us,’’ one of them said, halting the programme and speak- 
ing right up in the most neighbourly way “Please forgive us, Mr Kaye 
We hate to go, but we )ust have to catch a train We hope youil under- 
stand And we’re coming again ** —The Saturday Review 



Bill Sudduth’s rewarding 
hobby ts to help displaced 
persons get a new start 


One-Man Rescue Squad 


B\' Dcena Clat ^ 

HF ww voung 
woman grasp- 
ed the worn handle 
of her suitcase and 
made her wa\ down 
the gangplank of the. 
cargo ship TimidK 
she approached the 
New^ York dock-side 
policeman and asked, 

“Please, sir, could 
you rcll me — how do 
I get to Mr Suddulh's tlal* 

It did not take her long to line! 
out New Yorkers who ha\c an\- 
thing to do with DPs know the wav 
to the Sudduth haven 
Tall, dark eyed, 3(;-vr.ir'old Wil- 
liam Sudduth IS a one man lescue 
squad whose hohbv is helping voung 
DPs to get to America In less thun 
SIX years ht has brought in 450, 
arranging scholarships and jobs for 
then 

It all started m 1945 In Europe 
as a member of the United Nations 
Relief and Rehabilitation Adminis- 


r r 



tration, Mississippi- 
^ l)()rn Hill Sudeiuth 

had Ixcn appointed 
Director ot b'orcign 
Students at the Uni- 
versity ot Heidelberg 
He was in charge of 
400 voung men and 
women ot ijclillcicnt 
nationalities 

Hill came to know 
each stuck nt person- 
allv , he listened to their tioubles, 
advised them on their problems He 
brought in visiting lecturers and 
him travelogue^ that helped answer 
their eternal querv, “What is the 
United States really like^” Then, 
after tw'o very succ'cssful years, 
UNRRA funds suppoiting the for- 
eign students were cut off. There 
was little chance that these promis- 
ing young DPs would be able to get 
further education 
Bill had to return home On the 
day he was to leave, distressed stu- 
dents waited outside his office to say 


44 


Condensed from The American Mercurv 



Om^MAN RESCUE SQUAD ^ ^ 5 ' 


good-bye to the best friend they had 
ever had “I was so choked up I 
couldn’t say much,” Bill recalls, 
“but I promised Td help them get 
a new start somehow ” 

Back in New York, he went to 
work as cruise manager for a large 
travel agency — and rearranged his 
litc to keep his promise He rented 
.itul furnished a flat to serve as a 
‘ stiuk nt hostel" for the DPs he was 
determined to rescue Hien he be- 
gan his eainpaign l)\ visiting a eed- 
lege in New Jersev I here he told 
the asseinhlcel stiielent body about 
the plight oi his Heidelberg friends 
I ive minutes after he stepped down 
from the plaltoim two stiidt nts 
came to him and said, “\Vc repre- 
'.ent the student bodv We want to 
‘.lelopt’ a DP " 

Prom photographs and rc'eords 
which Sudd LI th prodiucd the\ 
sele'cted blonde, blue-cved Asta 
Tamm from hstoma Ihll sent Asia 
mone of his own foi her fare 
W'hen she stepped ofl the boat he 
and three students met hei with a 
ti link! Ill ot clothes and a cheque 
for ‘ ‘pocket monev ' The Suelduth 
leseiie mission was under wmv 

Meanwhile, Hill had begun to dig 
up more sponsors foi more students 
He IS a personable fellow with a 
slow, warm smile anel an e'asv, 
natural ehaim, and his sineeritv 
kinelles instant entluisi.ism toi his 
cause At another college he con- 
vinced the students and trustees so 
well that the college pledged eight 
^^275 scholarships Students at Mis- 


sissippi State College, his alma 
mater, offered to sponsor 13. At the 
University of Texas the various 
societies and clubs assumed respon- 
sibility for eight 

Sudduth’s assistant at Heidelberg, 
Ruth Prager, had stayed on in Ger- 
many withou*^ salary By sending 
photostat cor of birth certificates, 
pcrson.ility recommendations, tran- 
scripts of school credentials, and so 
on, she helped Bill struggle through 
the maze of red tapt required to 
get each DP to America Church 
agencies helped b\ certifying that 
the voiing men and women would 
not become public charges 

H\ the end v)f the first year the 
wSudeluth [iroleges were making 
good in some 30 U S universities. 
1 hcv found part time jobs, and 
[)r()vcel to be such assets that every 
umvcrsitv has asked for more 

Natasha Koval is a remarkable 
girl VV hen Bill hrst saw delicate, 
auburn haired Natasha, she was a 
13 \ car-old waif who had just sur- 
vived a Nazi concentration camp. 
With chunks of plaster and bits of 
charcoal she had fashioned a piano 
keyboard on a dilapidated packing 
ease, and on it die practised scales 
for boil 1 s dailv In spite of her youth, 
Hill enrolled her at Heidelberg Uni- 
versity as a special music student. 
At 15 she pcifoimcd as a guest 
soloist willi a svmphonv orchestra 
in Heidelberg 

When Hill brought Natasha to 
America, he arranged an audition 
for her with a music school in 



THE READER'S DIGEST 


4t 

Rochester, New York She was 
granted a schol.irship immcdi.itclv 
Now lornpkting her miisKal educa- 
tion in New York, Natasha helps 
earn lu r w.iv 1)\ giving t once its 
Bill IS proud ot (del) Mam.intov, 
who woikccl his w.i\ rhiough l.oui 
siana wStatc Um\tisit\ ,>iid gndu 
ated with the highest honours *\nd 
of Lithu.inian Aldon i (\kas, wlu) 
eaptuitd a 1 inguage leaehing icl 
lowship It I)uk( l-’niMisilv .It le)' 
Andtluic lit th( j”, girls whf) ha\e 
gradu.ittd .is icgisteicd nurses 
“I hast not liatl .i single t iiliirt 
or (hsappointnit nl, ’ Ihll sa\s 

In .lelehlion to (he unis ( rsii\ spun 
sorships. Bill h.is oht nne d help horn 
old iritntls ( Mk night when two 
ig \e.u old .irii\ ds knotk(e! on his 
(looi liill thouglu ot Ins lioiiK lt>wn 
driigst()re owner, 1 inus Ilarliuss, 
and his wilt ih< lliitness(s h lel 
lost their onl\ son in W'oilil \\ ir II 
Hill picked up die telephone .ind 
called their home “Do \ou need 
tlicse' heivs" ' he .iskeil Mrs ll.nt 
ness “ 1 ht'\ nee il \ou 

11k H.u tiK'sses look the voung 
men into the it lioiiK , celiic Ui d tlie m 
anel aie as proud erl them is it tins 
WK'rt then own I heir 1 ugoslas 
“son” l< uhtsagnMiom\ it tlic Ihii 
vcisit\ ol ll.iwaii Ills Russian 
“brt>thcr” scrst'ei in koie i le>r three 


years and is now a chemist in New' 
York 

The esteem of his proteges is Bill’s 
highest icwaid Almost daily he re- 
ceives letters full ot warmth and 
gratitude One student wrote, “Be 
foie I receneel tins scholarship m\ 
life was .ill \esterd.i\ Now it is all 
tomorrow 

Ag.nn .ind igain Bill has Been 
.iskeel lo gi'c .1 hriele iwm\ — anel Ik 
has lost It. Ilk ol tin times he has 
been .i godlitlui .Mikf lurkowit/, 
W'ho volunlieied tor \im\ ^mcc 
liter timshmg hi% schooling .uul 
the n lost his In e in t.ink m.mo u \ le s, 
h.id wrJten on his pijiirs, in the'* 
'‘piK tor N.ime ot h.itlur ' ‘\\ il 

h im Sudduili ' Mike s Atm\ insur 
nice we nt to Bill, wluj used it te^ 
he Ip oIIk t s si 111 1 ne w life 

A \isit to Sudduth's ll.it re seals 
how his hot)l)\ n the guiehng lone 
III his lite l iiere .ue ,ilw.i\s stuelents 
there, taking lem|^oi.ir\ ictuge in 
the spiisek tuinished rooms The 
tl.il IS ‘home ’ to the m .It ( 111 istmas 
.ind spring holidi\s 1 lu doors are 
iie\er loekeel I he slue.iiils keep 
house .mel een.li ibnte .is tlics tind 
work Bill is l.ir tiom weillhs, but 
ilmost h.ilt ot his sil.irs goes into 
his hol)b\ hat better inscstment 
c m sou make ih.in in the life ot a 
hum.in being ' ' he' asks 


Vattuig Shot 

MAID asked tor an ailsaiice' on her sscek’s siliiy “Our preaclicr is 
kasing the’ church tins Siindav,” she told us, “anel the Longrcgation wants 
to gl\e him l little* momcPlum ’ l na M. Knight m Coronet 




kite „ Mau Jiau 's Unexpected Bnemy 

})\ St.Milcv I lii>h 


I ^1I^ kf n\ 1 Afiu.ins who 
puktcl the m 11 duinh 
th jl itt( I fi(U)ii u k.il) 0 1 md 
(ntiilowtd ini()lh( c k .irm^ ontsidi , 
most lud tome, the Aiii^lu in Ihshop 
t(dd me, .It tilt risk (jt thtir lives 
In'* Kah.ne is \kiu Mm < oimlrv 
'rht M.ui M.m IS .1 terrorist origin 
i/.infiii, amorii^ the Kikuvii trilu, 
whieh in 1(^52 kmiKh^d .i gucrrill.i 
w.ir of murder md .irson to drive 
the white man from konva I oda\ 
It IS not the white man whom the 
Mau Mail hates most, if is the 
Afnean Christian 
“Chnstianitv was first pre*aehecl 
m Ken\a,” the* hishop said, “only 
about 50 )cars ago ^ rt this faith 
has laid siieh hold on the hve*s 
of these people that the\ are 
already adding a Kenya chapter 


I he litth knuti'H af the chief 

ttnoH^f)} in Kenya 

to the book of C hiisti.in M.irtyrs.” 

It w is the Afnean (,hristian who 
In'll Hjieled the Mau Mau baibar- 
isni and the n uiim isked :t In scores 
of te nor strie ke n villager it is his 
K Mstane ( w hie h is turning tfie Mau 
Mau tide His e simple ofTers the 
best ho[)e that Afri»..ms and Euro- 
peans, tcigether, ean w'c^rk their way 
out of todav’s bitterness towards a 
genuine pait-iership in the future 
of then still pioneer country. 

P>v carlv 1(^54, the number of 
w'hites murdered b\ die Mau Mau 
was 22 The number of Africans 
murdered runs into hundreds. 
Main more have been tortured, 


47 


fm DWBST y^w* 


f' Acir homes burned, their herds de- 
stroyed or stolen. Christians, who 
number less than onc-third of the 
Kikuyu tribe, bore the brunt of 
these attacks 

> Three nights before the Bishop’s 
visit to Kabare, at a spot many of 
his congregation passed on their 
way to church, a Christian Kiku\u 
chief, for persistenth affirming his 
faith against repeated Man Mau 
threats, had been ambushed and 
murdered Yet at Kabare the Bishop 
confirmed 132 Africans into church 
membership 

Twelve had come from another 
village Within the week their own 
church had been burned, some of 
its leaders killed Unvv illing to delay 
their Confirmation, they had walked 
18 dangerous miles to Kabare in 
order, publicly, to assume the peri- 
lous status of Christian 

At Gitumbi, the church where 
the Bishop preached was surrounded 
by a defence cordon of the Kikuvu 
Home Guard, most of them Chris- 
tians, most armed with bows and 
arrows Nine Africans had just been 
murdered nearby In that village 42 
were confirmed Another congrega- 
tion numbered more than 1,000, 
yet, two miles away, two churches 
and three Christian schools fired by 
the Mau Mau were still burning 
Mau Mau terrorism is part gang- 
sterism Some of It, since the Mau 
Mau leader, Jomo Kenjatta (now 
in prison), once sat at the feet of 
l^oscow’s teachers, may be Com- 
fewiptst-inspired In larger part, it is 


a product of grievances — some far 
from imagined — against the whites. 
Stirred by land-hunger among the 
land-loving but land-lacking Ki- 
ku\ u tribesmen, it is fed by the de- 
sire for the white man’s fields, herds 
and houses, once he is destroyed It 
offers, in his wake, a Black Paradise 
ruled by the Kikuvu 
It IS not because thev are free of 
grievances, or because they lack con- 
viction that Africans should have a 
larger, fairer share in Kenva’s fu- 
ture that so mans native Christians 
have stood fast against the Mau 
Mau “These are a Iiteral-mindcd 
people,” said a white Kenvan, “and 
thev take their religion literally To 
them the issue was plain The Mau 
Mans preach hate and practise vi/i- 
Itnce, Christ preached and prac- 
tised love Long before we knew the 
nature of this thing, thev knew and 
had made their choice ” 

Ambrose Ofata, a devout Roman 
Catholic, was at 35 senior African 
leprcsentative on the Nairobi City 
Council, a foremost advocate of 
native causes Last November in 
Nairobi I read an appeal he had 
made the previous dav calling on 
Kenva’s Africans to defy the Mau 
Mau I'hat night, driving to his 
home in the city’s outskirts, his taxi 
stopped When he got out to help 
the driver he was shot down from a 
nearby patch of jungle. From his 
hospital bed, on each of the five 
days that he lived, Ofafa made a 
new appeal to his fellow Africans 
to work together to achieve their 





^954 

•rightful ends by better means than 
terrorism. 

Kenya’s African Christians resist 
the Mau Mau doctrine not only be- 
cause It IS so plainly iin-Chnstian, 
but because it is fanatically anti- 
Christian Christ, in the Mau Mau 
preaching, is the exclusive Saviour 
of Europeans, He is an instruinent 
of European aggression A Mau 
Mau song translates like this “The 
White Men came 'Ehev brought 
their Christ T’hc\ taught us, when 
we pray, to look up to Eiim And 
when we looked, they stole our 
land ” 

In a sense, Mau Man is religious 
a violent effort to re\ivc the pagan 
faith of the Kikuvii and restore the 
• tribnl barbarisms, which the Chris- 
tians repudiate Tht kikinu arc a 
proud and fanatical people This 
call to return to the wavs of their 
fathers has had a powx’iful appeal 

Of the gods the Mau Mau wor- 
ship, none IS so potent as their 
leader, Kenyarta In Mau Mau 
hvmns, many of them [larodies of 
Christian hvmns sung to Christian 
tunes, Kenyatta displaces Christ as 
saviour He is hailed as deity in the 
Mau Mail version oi the Apostles’ 
Creed In the Mau Mau “trinity” 
he IS the central figure 

It is this anti-Christianity that 
calls forth the staunchest African 
resista^nce Listen to the <torv, well 
known in Kenya, of John Waruhiu 
and his son David 

John Waruhiu was a paramount 
chief. The Kikuyu m his location 


numbered more 
than 30,000 Old 
and beloved by his 
people, he had been 
a Christian for 
nearlv 50 vears His 
family had Bible 
reading and pravers 
in their home at 
the beginning and end of every day. 

When, in 1952, the Mau Mau 
oath began to spread through his 
territory Chief Waruhiu called on 
the elders of his tribe to resist it. To 
oppose the Mau Mau oath, he an- 
nounced a C'hristian oath to his peo- 
ple He chose the first of the Ten 
Commandments “Thou shalt have 
no other gods before Me. . 
Then, despite daily threats of ven- 
geance against himself and his fam- 
dv, he called a meeting of all the 
Kikuvu of the Kiambu District 
Thirtv thousand appeared Chief 
W’aiuhiii denounced the Mau Mau 
and Its oath as wholly evil and 
called his people to resist it 

Not long aftei wards he was mur- 
dered 

Today Day id Waruhiu threat- 
ened as his father was, works 
among the 1,200 Mau Mau, all listed 
as “worst olTcnders,” at the Athi 
River Detention Camp Behind the 
barbed wire of this extraordinary 
prison the Ciovernment is permit- 
ting Kenya’s Christian organiza- 
tions, Protestant and Catholic, to 
conduct a programme of rehabilita- 
tion through religion. 

I asked David Waruhiu how 




THE RE/OEftS DrdBST 


50 

many Mau Mau had been won over 
in the first nine months of the 
voluntary programme of Christian 
preaching, teaching and counselling. 
Two hundred and sevcnl\, he said. 

“How do \ou knew they are 
won over?” 

“When they arc willing to go 
back, unprotected, and nsk death 
to denounce the Mau Mau before 
their own people, that is proof.” 

Although ('Ihristians ha\c pro- 
vided the chief African resistance 
to the Mau Mau, a considerable 
body of resisting non-Chnstians 
have joined in the Kiku\u Home 
Guard This voluntary defence 
force, first organized In Christian 
chiefs for the protection of their 
kraals and churches, now numbers 
more than 2o,uoo Its members serve 
without pay 

In the most dangerous areas, the 
Home Guard mans scores of strong 
points which serve as refuges for 
threatened Africans and as bases of 
operation against Mau Mau gangs 
The lovaltv and heroism of the 
Home Guard and the native police 
give strength to the belief of the 
Kenya authorities that final wiping 
out of the Mail Mau will be largely 
accomplished bv the Africans them- 
selves 

Because of Kikuyu loyalty and 
resistance there is evidence of a new 
spirit ^mong many of Kenya s 
whites towards the native popula- 
tion White arrogance has not been 
eliminated, and the doors of oppor- 
tunity for the natives have not vet 


been opened very far. But a change 
seems in the making 

Appropriations by the Kenya 
Government for native education 
have more than tripled during the 
last five years There has been a 
large increase in low-cost housing 
projects for urban natives Plans 
are under wav to remove the bar 
against natives in certain jobs and 
to train them tor such employment 
A Native Land Settlement Board 
IS tackling the problem of opening 
new furming areas 

“This,” said a planter, “was once 
a black man's countrv We have 
tried to make it a white man’s coun- 
trv The job, from now on, is to see 
that It becomes oi^r countrv — for 
both black and white ” 

Meanwhile, there is a prav er heard 
among Kenya's African Christians 
“Not that we may be kept safe, 
but that we may be kept faithful ” 
Churches arc crowded as never 
before When, now, an African 
Christian is murdered his ft How 
C'hristians often march to the 
cemetery singing, “Onward, Chris- 
tian Soldiers ” 

At a recent Sundav-evcning ser- 
vice in a Mau Mau-infested district, 
the visiting missionary sat in the 
congregation next to an African 
church elder. The cider’s Kikuyu 
Bible, placed on his knees, was open 
at the 91st Psalm. The fifth verse 
was heavily underlined . 

“Thou shalt not be afraid for the 
terror by night, nor for the arrow 



By VCilfrtd Funk 

Wh iHiQi rNTri skip o\cr "words that arc new to us Or we may assign wrong 
meanings to them These “Word Power'’ tests will tend to make each strange 
word \ou meet a challenge to you First write down delinitioiis of *-hc wwds you 
think you know Ihcn check below the word or phrase that you bclie\c is nearest 
in Mcannin to the kev wc*rd Answers ire on the next page 


(1; vigil (\i)' il) — \ rir/i/nss H u/f- 
(. a U’dfihinii 1 ) stTtnztb and 

vitality 

i'l) forthwith (tnrrh with) -A in ad- 
viimt 1^ toi^itlni L jrunkly D tnnmdi- 
atfly 

(»•!) cifcumscfibed (sur kuni skiibd)— A 

• liMitul H (\plaiihd in full C round- 

about D cautions 

(4) pursuant (pur sfi' ant) -A suift B 

l.iiitiive ( pinnas/it D ir unordanct 

with 

(5) purportedly (put poti ul li) — A 

fu/s H \tlpsbly C profisitdly D 

unsnuessfully 

(6) conscientious (kon shi en' shus) — A 
awafe of B scrnpuloas C \hy D thinking 

(7) minimal (min' i rnal)— A foolish B 
the lea^t pouihle C uveraoe D compara- 
tively small 

(8) amulet (am' \u let) — \ a chufm B a 
bractltt (. a tiny vast O a small detotaitve 
statue 

(9) reprehensible (rep ii hen' si b’l) - 
A greedy B anxious about ih*> jut are C 
all-imlusive D blameworthy 

(10) obtain (ob tane') — A to insist upon 
B to be prevalent or in use C to ketp 
D to overt ome 


(11) trumpery (dump' ur b — A northless 
ftuft) B ta fitful dt I orations C cheap 
boa^tinn^ I) haii^tnms^ 

(12) perpetrator (pur' pc tra’^ tur) -A 
a thini’ that pumtiires B wtom>-doer C 
distraction O traitorous uit 

(13) casual (ki/h' yu al) - A whoncerned 
and I are It B la>y L vuonsidtrate D 
tardy 

(14) refection (n’ tek shun) — A meal 

B attiiidi or po slur o) character 

D habitual jault 

(15) dappling (dap Jing) — \ a rippling 
soithd B mint ms, C varu satins with ipots 
D liki little waver 

(16) meagre (me gur) r-humble B: 

phntil'tl L silprhlj stingy D scanty 

(17) reputed bi put' id)— A dented B: 
disgraied L sup pond to be smh D said 
asam and usain 

(18) infestation (in les ta\' shun) —A: 
rase B di i a) L the state of be ms present in 
annoyins numbtrr D causins disease by the 
introd/h tion of sermr 

(10) countervail (koun tur vale') — A* 
persuade offset C strengthen D • conceal, 

(20) bravado (bra vah' do ) — K wit B: 
prettnded bra ^ try C romance D; true 
lonrase 



Answers to 
“IT PAYS TO INCREASE 
YOUR WORD POWER” 

{!) vigil — C A matching, staving awake 
for a purpose , as, “ The doctor kept an all- 
night w^// over his patient ” The Latin 
w^/4 “watchful ” 

(2) forthwith — D Immediatelv, dircctk , 
without delay, as, “fie strode on to the 
platfonn and started to speak forthuJh ” 

(3) circumscribed— A limited, restric- 
ted, as, “The peoples trecdoiiis utre 
ctreum^enhed b\ dictatorial laws ” From 
the Latin tirtumrmhert , “to dtaw a citcu- 
lar line round “ Hence, to bring within 
narrow bounds 

(4) pursuant- D In accord ince with, 
conformable, carrMng out oi following, 
as, “1 will act pnnuant to vour wishes 
From Old French pours uu art 

(5) purportedly — C Protessedh and 
designedly, as, “Iht meeting was called 
purportedly for voting on the constitu- 
tion ” 

(6) conscientious — B Scupulous, gov- 
erned or dictated b\ one’s conceptum of 
nght and wrong, as, “Nothing short of 
complete accurae^ could satisfy his con- 
saentious regard for truth “ I rom the 
Latin ’onicientiOy “a conscifjusncss or 
awareness ot right and wrong ’’ 

(7) minimal — B From the Latin mtmmuSy 
“least” Hence, as little as possible, 
least, as, “The doctor advised the mini- 
mal dose for his patient ” 

(8) amulet — A From the I atm amidetum^ 
“a charm ” Hence, a small object worn 

^as protection against harm or ill luck 

(9) reprehensible — D Blamcworth> , cul- 
pable, deserving of censure, as, “ I he 
attack IS obviously reprehensible and dis- 
graceful ” The Latin teprehenderey “to 
blame ” 

(10) obtain — B To be prevalent or in use, 
to be established, to prevad, as, “The 
men arc paid k^wer wages than obtain 
elsewhere.” Also, to acquire, from the 
Latin term obtmere 

' 5 » 


(11) trumpery — A: Worthless finery, 

showy stuff of no real value, as, “Her 
trunks w ere filled with silly trumpery ” 
French trompertey “deceit ” 

(12) perpetrators — B From the Latin 

perpetrarty “to perform” hence, a per- 
former, especially of a crime , wrongdoer, 
as, “The perpetrators of the vandalism 
were soon found out ” 

(13) casual — A Unconcerned and care- 
less, haphazard, happening by chance, 
as, “He can laugh at himself m a cavtaly 
casv way ” The Litin lasualiSy from lasiiSy 
“accident ” 

(14) refection — \ Meal, nourishment, 

especialK after hunger or fatigue, as, 
“It was not a common, ordinar\ refec- 
tun ” I rom the Latin refectWy “refresh- 
ment ” 

(15) dappling — C \ anegating w ith spots , 
as, “ 1 he sun came dupphne^ through the 
trees “ I bought tf) be related to the 
Icelandic deptlly “spot ” 

(16) meagre -- D Scantv , inadequate, 

deficicnr in strength, poor, as, “THe 
nelp he gave us w^as nieasre ’ I hrough 
Old 1 lench mai^e from the Latin mac- 
rum y “lean ” 

(17) reputed — C Supposed to be such, 
generalK accepted, as “He is the reputed 
ownct of the business ” Fr<jm the 1 aim 
rtpuiOy rt-y “over,” and putare^ “to think ” 

(IS) infestation — C Present m such 
numbers as to be a souicc of annovance, 
trf)ublt and danger, as, an infestation of 
locusts From the Latin infestarey “to 
harass ” 

(IM) countervail — B To offset, to op'W'sc 
with equal power, as, “Nfj human forces 
can tountervdil their stiength ” From the 
1 atm lontra-y “against,” and valerfy “to 
be strong ” 

(2(1) bravado B Pn tended braver, , as, 
oungsrers often show bravado m 
attempting tf) impress their colleagues ” 
From the Spanish bratada, “affected 
bravery ” 

Vocabulary Ratings 

20 correct . . excellent 

19-15 correct good 

14-12 correct fair 




Hundred Dollar Honeymoon 


By Doddy Roge As told to Margaret ('ooper Gav 


iS-l- 1 THRH--\IO\IH HO\E^\I()0\ HI 

JJ Ithe United States for $120^ 
The Dutch Government would al- 
low us to take onK that amount — 
about ^42— out of Holland and our 
friends said it wouldn’t last usthicc 
days A dinner for two with a little 
wine, »^hc\ said, would cost at least 
five dollars, a hotel room even more 
Pitying smiles greeted our ex- 
planation that we were going to cook 
by the side of the road What w<Hild 
we cooki^ How much ham and eggs 
and beefsteak would $120 buv ^ And 
where would we sleep In the car^^ 
Our friends hooted. We were much 
too big to sleep in (-unnar's little 
Volvo, our Swedish-built car Gun- 
nar is six feet four inches tall and 
I am nearly six feet 
But Gunnar is a Swede and stub- 


Sleepmg in their car, eating cheaply , ' 
a European couple spent three 
happy months in the United States 

born I am Dutch and stubborn too. 
He hinged the front seat sc that it 
would fold back and make a bed; 
we stocked the car with camping 
cc]uipmcnt and l)edding And with 
many wishes for “a pleasant week- 
end in New '^ork,” we loaded the 
Volvo into the ship’s hold and 
sailed, feeling only a little less ven- 
turesome than Leif Ericson. 

“We must eat all we can on the 
ship, my anycl,” Gunnar said. So 
we ate diligently until the sky line 
of New York climbed out of the 
murk of a January afternoon. 

The customs inspector scanned 


Condemed from Collier s 


5S 



- JiEADSftS DtGESf June 


• our declaration. “Cheese, chocolate, 
margarine,’' he read aloud and 
smiled. “What’s this, reverse lend- 
lease?” 

New York glittered with light, 
an enchanted citv We bought a loaf 
of bread in a shop where e\cr\bod\ 
spoke Italian, and then we drove 
aimlessly, staring at shop signs in 
Italian, Chinese, ('ircek, 'Yiddish, 
Spanish, (German No one had told 
us that New ^ ork was a hundred 
cities, each with its own language, 
its ow^n wa\ s 

When w'c came to BroadwaN , w'C 
drove up and down it until the 
lights w'cnt out and onK an OLca- 
sional taxi moved in the silent 
streets We were \er\ tired 

At last, in a cjiiict, tree lined 
street bordered b\ [larked cars, wc 
slipped into a va^^ant place W c 
wanted a eup of ICd, but it was rain- 
ing Uxj hard to permit us to light 
the primus stove b\ the roadside, so 
we had a ehet sc s<mdwieh <md a 
drink of water It was exiting to 
fold back the Injnt seat and ''pread 
sheets and lilankets B\ the time wc 
had our curtains into the wind^iw^s 
and windserctn, we were soaked 

The next thing I knew (lunnar 
was saying, “Anvel, ! think we have 
Hbde a mistake ” It wms 8 jo in the 
and wc were snug alicd in 
«fie midst of a panclcmomum ot 
lionking horns and racing motors 
an Riverside Drive 

By the time the bed was put 
away, with the help and advice of 
Uttic boys wlio came from nowhere, 


wc had already seen more cars than 
there are in all Holland. Most of 
them were going in one direction, 
and we began to think some great 
event had taken place. I asked the 
hovs, enunciating mv words care- 
fulK as I had been taught to do in 
pre war England 

Nothing had happened, thev said 
Finallv a cherubic lad )crked a 
thumb at the traffic “'\ou mean 
them' That's just the morning rat 
race ” 

Later on wc learned that rat race 
IS slang for stampede, but for week 
wc believed that people thronged 
into New ork in the morning to 
w'atch rats run races 

Wc started for Niagara Falls, 
which, w'c had lead, all honcvmoon- 
ers must visit d he distarKC was 
much greater th.in wc expected be- 
cause we were still leading miles 
and thinking kilometres 

\\ c saw' Niagara hv moonlight 
shimmering silver, it was awescjme 
and humbling and verv cold I rc 
member w'oneknng wh\ such im- 
personal magniiiecncc was the 
ehejice ot lovers 

W c started scnith, c imping l)\ the 
side of the road After the evening 
traffic h.id stopficd we see*mcd to he 
the onl\ people' in the world L.ile 
one night a loud rapping woke us 
(junnar peered out, stiffened “Be 
brave, an\cl," he whispered, “it is 
the police ” 

While he fumbled with the door 
latch, I could hear again the mttal- 
tippcd heels of the Crcstapo clank- 



mziAR honetmvun 


ing, saw again the long lines of 
Hollanders on their way to German 
prison camps. A flashlight swept the 
car. A brusque, official voice said, 
“What arc you doing here?” 

“We were sleeping — we didn’t 
know ” 

“Where you folks from?” 
Gunnar handed over our papers. 
“We came from Holland ” 
“Whadda you know? I was at 
Nijmegen — paratroops ” 
Immediately we w'ere all talking 
at once The policeman remembered 
that our house had been shelled , he 
knew my cousin Yop He said Flor- 
ida was reallv warm and it was good 
that our little car would go 40 miles 
on a gallon of petrol. He handed 
our* papers back to Gunnar 
“Good night, folks, Daaaagf'^ he 
said 

“Daaaaaaag*” we shouted, almost 
hysterical with relief 
We lived almost entirely on bread 
and cheese and tea until we discov- 
ered the big self-service groceries 
We Wciit from vegetables to meat 
to fruit to tins, fingering everything 
like children m a toy shop We were 
extravagant that first day and bought 
a box of four tomatoes. Tomatoes 
m January^ 

We solved the problem of avoid- 
ing over-buying by putting 60 cents 
in a separate pocket before entering 
a grocer’s. When it was gone we 
spent no more unless desperately 
tempted. We never did spend more 
than 75 cents in any one day. Every- 
one to whom we have told this says 


we couldn’t possibly have lived on 
so little. But we did, and we felt 
wonderful 

Whenever we stopped for petrol 
everybody gathered round to ask 
what sort of car we had, how much 
It consumed, where we came from 
and why. We bought one gallon at 
a time and always from the com- 
pany that had the nicest rest rooms, 
because there we bathed, shaved and 
even washed clothes. 

Once when we stopped at a red 
light, a cream-coloured car smacked 
into our rear bumper. The driver 
was a pretty little woman with curly 
grey hair “I was so busy staring at 
your licence plate that I forgot to 
watch the light,” she said. 

She offered to pay for the dam- 
age, but there wasn't any. Then she 
introduced herself as Mrs. Roberts 
and invited us to lunch. No one in 
Holland would think of inviting 
guests in from the highway. Driv- 
ing up to a big white house she 
waved to a car standing in the drive. 
“Thank goodness, the carpenter’s 
here. My cellar door has been stuck 
for a week ” 

Mrs Roberts introduced us to the 
carpenter and in no time we were 
telling them about our impressions 
of the United States. “The people 
are not as rich as we expected,” 
Gunnar said, “but their courtesy is 
amazing ” He told about the lorry 
driver who rescued us from our first 
roundabout and went out of his 
way to set us right. “Of course,” he. 
added reflectively, “he thought I 



ge THE READER^S DKEST 


was the same famous person I am 
often mistaken for ” 

“Who’s that'^” Mrs Roberts 
asked. 

“A man named Mac,” (mnnar 
said. 

They shouted with laughter 
Then the carpenter explained 
“There isn’t any Mac— that’s what 
the drivers call any strangei It’s 
friendlier than ‘Hey voii 

On the wav south we were fasci- 
nated bv the change in scenery 
from hills and woods to bare flat 
land The poverty in some areas 
was distressing, and the signs of 
waste evtrv where appalled us dust- 
carts loaded with throwivout AkkI, 
the mountains of sawdust wheic 
once forests had stood, truit rotting 
on the ground, and c\cn the way 
motorists ground gears and slam- 
med on brakes 

Food became cheaper «ind wc ex- 
panded our diet We even tried 
three ear»- of corn wc found King 
on a road in Virginia I boiled that 
corn for hours and hours, and to 
the last bite it lasted like what wc 
learned laler it actually wa** — s<une 
thing for horses In Florida, despite 
our experience with the corn, wc 
had anothei fling at living olT the 
scenery This began with unripe 
coconuts and ended abruptly after a 
snack of castor-oil beans One ex- 
ception was oranges which wc 
picked from abandoned groves 

The west coast of Florida en- 
chanted us It seemed to us a raw, 
untamed wilderness waiting to be 


peopled. Vagabonds though wc 
were, we felt like pioneers. And we 
met other pioneers 

There was the fruit grower from 
Canada who had started out to see 
the United Slates with his wife, two 
sons, two cats, a dog and 200 jars of 
jam, all loaded into a van They in- 
vited us to dinner in the \an, gave 
us a lot of jam and tried to lend us 
money, though they knew we had 
come from dollarlcss Europe and 
couldn’t pav it back A couple who 
made then living by letting flats 
gave us one foi a night A man 
fri>m Boston who didn’t like cola 
weather and had packed his wife 
and II goats into a lorry and gone 
south gave us a bottle of milk every 
time we met 

The last morning in New York 
wc still had $18 :52 left of our $120 
Wc scjuandcred every penny on a 
spectacular lunch We had cock- 
tails and champagne, pheasant and 
crcpcs Sii/ettc Those golden bites 
woLikl have bought pork and bean^ 
and pancakc-mix for another two 
weeks it we could have stayed 

Later at the pier wc unpacked the 
car before it was taken aboard Ciun- 
nar took out our last sandwiches 
“Mustn’t waste them,” 1 said 

Some workmen w'ho had been 
watching brought us steaming hot 
mugs of coffee It was the last 
American kindness and it touched 
us more than any other As the ship 
began to move the men waved and 
called good-bve We waved and 
shouted, “So long, Mac*” 



Strategy and tactics used by 
President Eisenhower 


Eisenhower^Job'-^Wer^^s Toughest 



% By Alfred 

HE of Presi- 

dent 6f the United 
States IS one of the 
most difficult and burden- - 
some jobs in the world. Not [ 
only must the incumbent manage a 
wide array of Government depart- 
ments with more than two million 
civilian employees, lead a political 
party, confer and bargain with Con- 
gress on his budget, tax programme 
and hundreds of bills a session, but 
he must also inform public opinion 
at home, speak for the nation 
abroad and guide foreign relations 
To make matters tougher, and re- 
gardless of what compelling issues 
are on deck, he must sign his name 
an average of 300 times a day, talk 
in private with more than 100 high 
officials about crucial problems each 
week and still find time to shake 
hands with visiting thousands. 


Steinberg ^ 

Recentljh^ spent several 
days in the White House 
to find out how President 
i Eisenhower handles this 
\ overwhelming job I learned 
h good deal 

To begin with, the President is a 
day worker and does not take work 
home at night Round-the-clock 
toiling, he believes, makes a man 
stale and tired for the next day. 
Even more important, he feels, it 
gives a person an excuse to put off 
making immediate decisions. 

On the job, Mr Eisenhower com- 
bines tremendous energy with a re- 
laxed manner From the moment 
he throws aside his bed-covers 
shortly after 6 a.m. until he elbows 
his desk drawer shut about 12 hours 
later, he is constantly on the go. 
Yet, though he does everything 
fast, he never gives the impression 

57 






THE REApER^S bICEST June 


that he is being rushed. On walking 
with him from the White House 
proper to his oval office in the West 
Wing, I discovered that, while he 
was talking casually, we were both 
fairly flying over the pavement 

He works for speed m all endea\- 
ours. He shaves before most men 
could scrape a cheek, dresses like a 
boy late for school He is also a 
rapid eater and golfer, and he dic- 
tates to his secretary like a blazing 
machine gun 

Moreover, he is a fast thinker At 
press conferences he can rephrase a 
reporter’s question in about a quar 
ter the number ot words and make 
It clearer at the same time When 
someone explains a problem to him 
and he fathoms the answer in mid- 
assage, he cuts in with a wave of 
is horn-rimmcd glasses and sa\s, 
“That’s all right I’ve got it ’ 

Another aid for propelling Picsi- 
dent Eisenhow'cr through his jire- 
posterous dav is his disinterest in 
pretence He has no eastc tuin of 
mind, despite his militarv baek- 
ground, and treats everyone with 
courtesy Although he has great re 
spect for the dignitv of the office of 
President, he likes to open his own 
doors and put on his overcoat with- 
out help He wants people to address 
him as “Mr President,” but he 
withdraws if they fawn on him He 
hkes to add friendly pencil post- 
scripts to dictated letters which he 
thinks sound cold 

The President has developed a 
rare ability to concentrate and to 


overcome interruptions without los- 
ing time getting his mind back on 
the track He often leaves important 
meetings for a quick handshake and 
exchange of pleasantries with visit- 
ing politicians, vet can return to the 
conference table and pick up where 
he left off without a reminder If 
his dictation to Mrs Ann Whit- 
man, his secietarv, is interrupted by 
a phone call, he never asks her to 
repeat the last sentence but invari- 
ablv begins at the point where he 
bloke ofT 

Mr Eisenhower also doesn't waste 
time on smoking After World War 
II he WMs phvsicalK exhausted and 
was oidercd tf) take a holiday and 
recuperate with the suggestion that 
he lav of! smoking At the time he 
was inhaling 40 cigarettes a dav 
After two weeks he determined 
never to smoke again, and iic hasn’t 

The President doesn't worry about 
problems facing him or decisions al 
ready made Once he makes a deci- 
sum, he moves on to the next piob- 
lem This does not mean that he 
makes his decisions offhand, haw- 
cver “In the military,” he empha- 
sized to me, “if you are going to get 
something done vou must do your 
ground-ploughing in advance It 
takes more ground-ploughing in 
the Presidency.” 

He tries to schedule all his ap 
pointments in the morning, when 
most people are more alert When 
he can do so he fences off his after- 
noons for work with his personal 
staff on reports and speeches, and 



EISENHOWER'S JOB^WORLirS TOUGHEST 


^954 

for contemplation. He frankly de- 
tests what ne calls “public days — 
when 1 am on display leading the 
hospitality brigade and not working 
for my employers, the American 
people.** 

Punctuality for meetings is a fet- 
ish with him — his military experi- 
ences taught him that a few minutes 
lost can turn the tide ot battle I le 
starts his Monday morning meeting 
with legislative leaders, his Thurs 
day-morning meeting with the 
National Security CounciK his 
Friday-morning meeting with the 
Cabinet on the scheduled dot, 
whether everyone is present (>r not 

He guides and leads discussion at 
meetings With legislative leaders 
of his own party he has found that 
ht can sometimes make better head- 
way through the use of the disarm- 
ing remark One he uses with varia- 
tions IS “I can’t understand the 
workings of politics Perhaps you 
gentlemen can explain to me how 
this hi 11 could possibly get through 
Congress ” On other occasions the 
President can be blunt with the 
same group if they appear fuzzy in 
their information On a recent 
Monday he announced sharply, “1 
have great respect for my caddy 
because he knows the course.’* 

Mr. Eisenhower helps to relieve 
high-level tensions in various ways. 
When two Cabinet members began 
sounding off at each other in a 
recent meeting, the President cut 
through both to address the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, Humphrey: 


“Well, George, what do you have 
to sayJ^ We haven’t heard from you 
lately ” At other times he will dc- 
libcratelv shift the subject, then 
slide back into it later, when heads 
have cooled 

Although the President is a re- 
laxed man who uses slang and a 
soldier's vocabulary in ordinary con- 
versation, he believes that he and 
his associates can do a better job 
by keeping their thoughts on a high 
plane No one has ever heard him 
tell an off-colour story, and he walks 
away frowning from those who do. 
If he tells a story it always has 
pertinence to the business at hand. 

In his meetings with individual 
V isitors President Eisenhower works 
hard at being a listenci if the other 
person knows what he is talking 
about and is brief But if the visitor 
slowly munches a half-baked idea 
he gets short but courteous treat- 
ment 

As a listener, the President has 
trained himself to digest and retain 
information in remarkable fashion, 
“Sometimes )ou don't think he 
even has his niind on what you’re 
talking about,” one of his aides told 
me, “but days later he will cut 
through your current briefing and 
say, ‘Now on that subject )ou men- 
tioned last week . .’” 

He believes in delegating author* 
ity, and when he employs a man he 
gives him definite responsibilities. 
He does not believe m “trouble- 
shooters,” who, he feels, serve only 
to entangle staff duties. 



TH£ WBADEks DIGEST 


Mr. Eisenhower docs not believe 
in keeping aloof from his staff — 
assistants can barge into his office at 
any time, no matter who his visitor 
of the moment may be He peppers 
his staff with chits signed “D E ” 
But no matter how close a family 
relationship he tries to establish, he 
never forgets that his job is more 
important than anyone’s hurt feel- 
ings. He won't tolerate second- 
raters and can tear a strip off an 
errant staff member (never in pub- 
lic, however) On the other hand, 
he believes in publicly lavishing 
praise on his staff when results are 
good, and in shouldering the blame 
himself when they aren t 
He is downright frugal about 
what he calls “the companv’s 
money ’’ He insists that he can do 
just as good work with a pencil stub 
as with a biand-new pencil Chauf- 
feured private cars for the White 
House secretariat arc out, and he 
suggests that his staff take cabs and 
pay their own fares to meetings 
about town He always tries to re- 
duce the number of persons accom- 
panying him on trips, and if he de- 
termines that a tup has a politiLal 


aspect he insists that local Republi- 
cans and not the U.S. Treasury pay 
the expenses. 

The President’s final technique 
for trying to do a better job is his 
firm refusal to mix business with re- 
laxation He considers it a crime to 
play golf and talk about anything 
else besides golf The same is true 
of bridge, at which he is rated an 
expert He plays for a tenth of a 
cent a point — and for blood “The 
harder he plays anything,” one of 
his triends told me the other day, 
“the more he gets his mind off his 
job Also, it he feels you aren’t play- 
ing yotif best, he will never invite 
vou again ” 

No matter how overwhelming 
and burdensome the complications 
of (lovernment problems appear at 
times. President Eisenhower prefers 
his present civilian post to his 
previous military career 

When I asked him why, he shook 
his glasses in the air, leaned back 
in his swivel chair and replied “In 
the Army I was trsing to do a job 
against the enemy As President, 
I'm trving to do a job fot the 
American people ” 


GROUP ot School children were taken by their teacher to a recent 
meeting of the village board in the hope that they would learn something 
about local government The mayor interrupted the proceedings occa- 
sionally to explain thing*; The youngsters squirmed and looked round 
at pictures on one wall and a huge moose’s head on another 

When the meeting was over the mayor asked, “Any questions, 
children?” 

“Yes,” said one small boy “Who shot the moose?” 

— Contributed by Riciiard Pruaain 



Do they really measure mielligen/e'* To what uses are they put? 

The Facts 
About IQ Tests 


Hv Hriicc Blivcn 


iiF us? of inicllij^cncc tfsls began 
m ig()4 in Pans Education 
authorities were tioublcd be- 
cause every scar a ceitain propoi- 
tion of new pupils were of inferior 
intcljigcnce and could not keep up 
with their school-fellows It took 
months to sort out these children, 
meanwhile much of the teachers’ 
time and effort was wasted A com- 
mittee appointed to consider this 
problem ccmsulted Alfred Binet, 
director of the ps)chological labora- 
tory ii the Soi bonne, who com- 
bined a brilliant reputation as a psy- 
chologist with a special interest in 
the intelligence of children 
Binet was optimistic “We know 
that there are some things a normal 
si ear-old can do that a normal 
four-) car old cannot,” he said “We 
know, too, that a six-year-old of re- 
tarded intelligence can usuall) do 
the things appropriate to a child of 
five or four or three. If we could 
establish standards for the average 
child of each age, we should be able 

Condensed fron 


to learn where the .ibilitics of any 
individual child place him ” 

With his collaborator, a Pans 
phvsieian n.imed "Pheodoic Simon, 
Binet visited elcmentar) schools and 
quizzed children Oiiild they read, 
and if so would each child icad a 
paragraph or two^ How high could 
each child count ^ C'ould he draw 
a sejuare^ A diamond^ Did any of 
them know a poem by heart, and if 
so might the visitor have the pleas- 
ure of hearing it recited^ 

The answers were carefully tabu- 
lated Then a test list of questions 
was prepared — to be asked each 
child entering school — which would 
indicate whether he could do the 
W'ork expected of other children of 
his age Experience soon proved 
that It worked 

Thus started a revolutionary new 
concept which has swept round the 
world Whether wc like it or not, 
people differ in their native intellec- 
tu.il endowment and this difference 
continues through life. It is inipor- 

The Rotar'an 




tant that no one be asked 
to perfofm tasks substan- 
tially beyond his mental 
capacity. It is even more 
important that persons of 
high intelligence be en- 
abled to use their gifts to 
the full in the service of 
the community 

In the course of the 
years, the Binct tests ha\e 
been re\ ised and other 
tests invented to meet 
requirements and condi- 
tionsin different countries 

Do IQ {intelligence 
quotient) tests leally fyi en- 
sure intelligence'^ The an- 
swer depends upon what 
you mean by “intelli- 
gence,” a subject on 
which the experts argue 
endlessly Howc\ei, there 
is a high correlation be 
tween success in the tests 
and success later in occu- 
pations where brain 
power is a prerequisite 
The tests report accurately 
such things as memory, 
vocabulary, reasoning 
power and mathematical 
ability. 

How IS your IQ ^core 
determined'^ It is the ratio 
of the -mental age you 
-^core on a test to your 
chronological age If an 
eight-year-old can answer 
questions normally an- 
swered only by a i2-year- 


Test Yourself 

An intelligence test has scores of ques- 
tions, selected according to subject^ age or 
presumed IQ Results must be interpreted 
by an expert Therefore the questions below 
(similar to but not identical with questions 
testers ask) cannot be called a real intelli- 
gence test It IS safe to say, however, tl'at if 
you answer eight or more correctly, in ten 
minutes or less, you ire doing w'cll men- 
tally Answers arc on page ^4 

1 The clock shows that it is ten minutes 
to three What time would it be if the posi- 
tions of the hour hand and the minute 
hand were rt v ers( d ^ 

2 A piece of w(u)il 24 inches long is to be 
cut so that one piece n thicc times . i long 
as the other How long will the shorter 
piece be " 

3 A man earns £10 a w'cek and his lin- 
ing expenses are ^7 a W(.ek Without using 
paper and pencil, tell how many weeks it 
w'lll lake him to save £y[) 

4 A thermometer is to tcinpeiature as a 

gahanomclci is to 

5 New'ton is to gravitation as hinstcin is 

to 

6 Which number is incorrect in this 
senes f)0, 52,45, :59, 35? 

7 You have a bucket of water weighing 
ten pounds If you [)ut in a three-pound 
fish, which is then supported by the water, 
what dots the w'holc thing weigh ^ 

8 A man travelling west turns left, then 
righ*^, then left and then left again In what 
diretlion is he now facing? 

9 Explain in youro^vn words the mean- 
ing of “A stitch in time saves nine ” 

10 You have a four quart can and- a 
seven-quart can, how can you get six quarts 
of water? Begin by filling the seven-quart 
can 



old, his mental age is 50 per cent 
above his actual age • his IQ is 150. 

Does your intelligence change 
with the passage of years'^ Most ex- 
perts believe that it does not change 
much, and that, when it seems to 
do so, this is probably because the 
subject did less than his best in 
earlier tests Children living in pov- 
erty and insecurity sometimes im- 
prove astonish ingl) when tested 
under better surroundings 

In any large sample of people, 
how many will he found at each 
level? Naturally, the largest number 
will be found clustered round 100, 
the average Thus one psychologist 
who conducted many thousands of 
tests found that 46 5 per cent of 
those tested have an IQ of 90 to 109 
Those with IQs of no to 119, 
“superior,” are 18 i per cent of the 

Intelligence tests, as well as tests 
ot special aptitudes, are being in- 
creasingly used in the U K by 
industrial and commercial organiza- 
tionv as part of their procedures of 
selection and promotion Tests of 
basic abilities also form part ot the 
selection procedure for some Civil 
Service posts 

The National Institute of Indus- 
trial Psychology has devised a large 
number of tests of intelligence and 
special aptitudes, which arc widely 
used in industry — for example, in 
the selection of boys for engineering 
apprenticeships The Institute also 
uses tests in its Vocat’onal Guidance 
work, for young people who seek 
advite about the choice of their 
career 


total. From 120 to 129 arc 8-2 pel* 
cent, and from 130 to 139, 3 i pet’ 
cent; these two groups are con- 
sidered “very superior.” In the 140 
to 149 bracket, “near genius,” afjC 
I 1 per cent. 

What sort^ of exercises are re- 
quired in intelligence tests? Here 
arc a few typical ones, mostly from 
Binet tests adapted for use at Stan- 
ford University in California 

At the age of two to three years a 
child should be able to fit blocks of 
various shapes (a circle, a square, a 
triangle) into holes of corresponding 
shapes At the age of four to five 
a child shown three or four objects 
should be able to say which one is 
missing when it is covered up or 
taken away At six, shown a simple 
ma/c, he should be able to take a 
pencil and trace the way out. 

At seven he should be able to say 
what is wrong with an absurd pic- 
ture, like that of a man eating din- 
ner while his house is on fire At 
nine he should be able to give in one 
minute a number of words which 
rhyme — given the word “day,” he 
should at once olTer such words as 
“say, may, pav, hay ” 

At 12 he should be able to tell the 
meaning of a simple fable, like 
i^^sop’s story of the dog which was 
crossing a bridge while carrying a 
piece of meat and dropped the meat 
in order to reach for the seemingly 
larger one which was reflected in 
the water He should be able to 
repeat backwards a number con- 
taining five digits. 



defence of a persecuted minority 
f ~thc left-handers 



By Eric Hodgtns 

T here is a persecuted minority in 
this world which has never, so 
far as I know, raised a voice on its 
own behalf — so I want to do it for 
them. I am talking about people 
born left-handed For a man, being 
left-handed is inconvenient For a 
-woman it can be torture 

The right-handed world has had 
It in for left-handers for centuries, 
and this shows up m our speech 
The words “sinister” and “gauche” 
are the Latin and French, respec- 
tively, for “left,” and they also have 
come to mean “evil” and “awk- 
? , , f 1 r ^ ' ' 

Emc HanciNs is tht author of two btst- 
selling bor>ks, Mr Ulan dings Hnilds Hts 
Dream House and Hlandin{rs' IVay (Mithad 
|tH(Cph, Ltd , London, W C i) 


ward.” But the right-handed world 
compliments itself by describing 
cleverness with the words “dex- 
trous” and “adroit,” from the Latin 
and French for “right.” You know 
what IS meant by the words “a left- 
handed compliment ” And in pol- 
itics when we speak of “the extreme 
left” we mean the Communists 
Not so long ago, when parents 
discovered that they were rearing a 
left-handed child, they moved heaven 
and earth to get him changed round. 
Left-handedness was supposed to 
go with low intelligence, bad lurk 
and maybe criminality Nowa- 
davs, thanks to modern psychology, 
parents and teachers are warned to 
let an infant left-hander develop as 
nature intended Therc've been a 
lot of suggestions that switching a 
left-hander causes him to stutter, 
but It didn’t affect me But one 
thing IS certain if voii try to teach 
a naturally left-handed child to 
write with his right hand, you put 
him under a heavv strain If you 
want to know how much, try writ- 
ing with your own less-used hand 
No matter how well the port-sider 
may learn to write, his fist will al- 
ways follow after his pen, snr.earing 
the ink and smudging the knuckles 
And any left-hander will walk a 
mile to avoid using a post-office 
pen Why?^ Because the point gets 
bevelled by constant right-handers’ 
use, and when the “southpaw” puts 
It to paper it catches and spurts a 
drop of ink 50 feet on the first 


CoHdtntfii from a radio talk 



sttokt. Pdr’tlie same rt&son, a fffe- 
hander is not happy in a bank, un- 
less it is equipped with ball-point 
pens, and not very happy even then, 
for the stub of the cheque he is mak- 
ing out to cash IS on the wrong side 
for him. A few years ago one con- 
siderate bank did put out a left- 
handed cheque-book, but very few 
have followed this humane lead 
The haughty disdain of the right- 
handed world makes “southpaws” 
sweat and fumble every day of the 
year in doing things the right- 
handers take for ' granted Pencil 
sharpeners, radiator knobs, saxo- 
phones, telephone dials are all de- 
signed hy right-handers for right- 
handers, on the cruel, stuck-up, pre- 
posterous assumption that the world 
IS all that way But there are about 
200 million “southpaws” in the 
world — more than the entire popu- 
lation of the United States — whom 
these things do not accommodate 
Now, although there is no such 
thing as a left-handed monkev 
wrench, it may come as a shock to 
some leaders that there is a right- 
handed frying-pan In fact, there 
are getting to be nothing hut right- 
handed frying-pans The handles of 
these things used to be simple 
chunks of black wood Now, 
thanks to that 20th-century special- 
ist, the industrial designer, who 
streamlines paperweights and alarm 
clocks, they are moulded to the 
shape of the hand — the right hand 
The lady “southpaw’* is in worse 
trouble now than she ever was be- 


fore. When she rharrics 
the stage where she fumbles wim| 
tiny garments, she must reverdi!|| 
every instruction in the pamphletC; 
that tell her how to knit. There arc'* 
cases on record of women who havC^ 
mothered families of six before fin- 
ishing a pair of socks for their first- 
born 

Some of the tools of certain trades 
arc so uncompromising that the left- 
hander can*t enter those trades at 
all You either play the violin as a 
right-hander or you don’t play it at 
all (The latter is usually preferable.) 
Left-handed dentists can buy special 
equipment to ply their trade, but it 
costs more, naturally, and the dent- 
ist has to explain to his patients why 
they feel sort of turned round. 

For the world’s more or less de- 
jected “southpaws,” for ever doom- 
ed to do everything the wrong way, 
there is some comfort Leonardo da 
Vinci was left-handed — this man 
that many think was the greatest 
individual in the histor\ of the hu- 
man race 

Mavbe the kindest thing you can 
do for the left-hander is to watch 
out for his inteicsts at the dinner 
table Put him at the end of the 
table, if you can, otherwise give 
him lots of room The left-hander 
usually has to reverse his knife and 
fork, and he lives in a state of nerv- 
ous indigestion lest the lady next 
him joggle his working elbow with 
her working elbow and land the 
mashed potatoes elsewhere than in 
the mouth It has happened — often. 



whafs with ^Mnce ? 


By Guy de Carmoy 


O UR STATE IS threatened in its 
authority, its independence 
and Its efficiency. Our economy 
has only partly attained the level 
of our foreign competitors Many 
French famnies are still without 
homes; they await the chance to 
earn an honest living in a better^ 
organized society.*’ 

This gloomy picture of post-war 
France was drawn by no other than 
the retiring President, Vincent Au- 
nol, last January. 

He had good reason to be pessi- 
mistic; during his seven years in 
office the French Government 
changed 13 times, with only one 
cabinet managing to survive more 
than a year. With ten splinter par- 

Guy DE Carmoy, who holdb the high rank 
of Inspecteur des Finances in the Irtnch 
Civil Service, was deported to Germanv bv 
the Nazis' in 194J Prom 1946 to 1948 he w'as 
the French representative at the World Bank 
io Washington From 1948 to 1952 ht was a 
director of the Organization of European 
Economic Co-operation for the 16 Mai shall 
Plan countries He resigned to write Fortune 
of Europe y a book which outspokenly advo- 
cates European federation. He letturcs at the 
.InsQtute of Political and Social Studies in 
Par». 


The future of the free world is 
closely linked to the strength and 
well-being of Western Europe In 
that area no eountry is more critically 
important than France Yet France 
today lives in a state of crisis, econ- 
omic and political A distinguished 
French economist ttlls here how this 
crisis has developed, and suggests 
what France must do to achieve 
stability and economic rceovciy 

ties m parliament, Fiance scemec 
doomed to government by precari- 
ous coalitions 

Industrial recovery has been small 
and slow in post-war France Agri- 
culture has fallen far behind Among 
the 16 nations receiving U S aid, 
France, with the best farmland in 
Western Europe, holds ninth place 
in yield of cereals per acre The 
housing situation is deplorable In 
1952 the number of rooms built per 
1,000 inhabitants was 27 m Ger- 
many, 24 in the United Kingdom 
— and only nine in France 
Such conditions as these are de- 
nounced by French leftist and con- 
servative politicians alike. They 
point with concern at the wide gulf 


<56 



’between the living conditions of 
worker and employer. 

Many Frenchmen — and most 
foreigners— look for the root of 
France’s trouble in her political in- 
stability. There is some basis for 
this France’s political feuds c»nd 
weakness ha\e undoubtedly ham- 
pered her economic development 
Vet this instability is not new Since 
the birth of the French Republic in 
1871 no Premier has remained in 
office for as long as three \ears 
Onl\ ten hj\c stayed tor two vears 
or more, 107 have not lasted tor 
a year 

This, however, did not prevent 
France fiom building the world’s 
second-Inigesl colonial empire, or 
fiom becoming one ot the world’s 
most prosperous nations In the light 
ot France’s pre-war record, political 
instabilit\ alone could hardly ac- 
count for her present plight 

Another factor frccjucntly men- 
tioned IS the war in Indo-China 
This eight-year war has cost France 
almost as much as she has received 
from the United States in economic 
and military aid It has cost the 
French taxpayers much more than 
the total French pre-war investment 
in Indo-China The wai in Indo- 
China IS a stumbling block to re- 
covery, but It IS not the chief reason 
for the crisis in France 

In great part the French crisis is 
moral Too many Frenchmen have 
developed the habit of seeking gov- 
ernment protection. Industrialists, 
already protected against domestic 


competition by cartels, want the 
government to shield them against 
foreign competition by high tariffs 
and restrictive quotas The peasants 
want the guarantee of high agricul- 
tural prices to enable them to buy 
the highly priced French manufac- 
tured goods 

The workers want the govern- 
ment U) supplement their inade- 
c]uale wages with generous family 
allowances and other social benefits, 
while demanding at the same time 
the closing ol borders to foreign 
labour, even when it is needed for 
expansion of the French economy. 

No wondci, then, that French 
domestiL prices, either in industry 
or in agnculturc, are much higher 
than world frriccs 

"1 he French believe that they still 
have a free economy What they 
actuallv have, in place of traditional 
free-market competition, is the com- 
petition for subsidies of innumerable 
groups, each of which presses the 
state to protect its accjuired position 
bv artificial means 

Pulled in all directions by these 
competing pressure groups (each 



promote its interest), the govern- 
ment is no longer in a position to 
make the national interest para- 
mount 

The price the French pay for this 
over-all protectionism comes high. 
For the government, unable to 
shoulder the heavy financial burden 
loaded upon it, has been compelled 
from time to time to lighten its 



by deva^g die French 
^ currency. For years the French have 
lived in a state of chronic inflation. 
The franc, devalued four times be- 
tween 1928 and 1939, has been 
further devalued four times since 
1944. Today it is worth, in dollars, 
only a tenth of what it was before 
World War II 

The French used to be the most 
savings-minded people in Europe 
At the outbreak of World War I, 
when their government appealed to 
them to turn in their gold for paper 
currency, they responded gener- 
ously, often digging hoarded coins 
out of woollen socks and from 
under mattresses. Today, however, 
the people no longer trust the gov- 
ernment. 

A man who in 1938 placed his 
savings in French six per cent 15- 
year bonds would have lost, by 
1953, 75 per cent of the purchasing 
value of the monc) he lent. 

Is it any wonder that the French 
have lost confidence in their cur- 
rency^ Many have even lost the 
traditional habit of saving And of 
those who still do save, many look 
to gold as their best protection The 
amount of French capital now being 
hoarded in gold has been unoffici- 
ally estimated at / 1.400 million to 
^2,000 million — several times 
greater than the gold reserve of the 
Bank of France ! 

France has also been suffering 
from uneconomic and inequitable 
tax laws. One often hears it said that 


Ac Ptmdk ifo ltot "pay taxes. This, 
is not true; they arc among Ac most 
heavily taxed people in the world.* 
Their taxes amount to about 33 per 
cent of the gross national product, 
as against 27 per cent in the United 
States 

But nearly half the French budget 
comes from sales taxes In contrast 
to his foreign competitor, the 
French industrialist must pay a 
high sales tax on all purchases de- 
signed to modernize his equipment. 
Then comes sales taxes on raw ma- 
terials 

To these are added numerous 
sales taxes paid by the middle- 
men who distribute the product All 
these taxes arc passed on to the con- 
sumer. As a result commerce stag- 
nates, the cost of living soars and 
the tax burden is borne primarily 
by those individuals who can least 
afford It 

The French income tax, which 
contributes onl) about 30 per cent 
of the government’s revenue, is a 
further example of an antiquated 
and unjust tax system. 

Peasants constitute more than a 
third of the population and earn 
about 14 per cent of the national 
income Yet, because of privileges 
they receive under the law, they pa\ 
three per cent of the total income 
lax Wage earners, who account for 
about half of the national income, 
pay 54 per cent of the income tax * 

* But they are still better off than the British, 
who pay 36 per cent of thetr gross national 
product m taxes. 



>954 WHATS wnONC 

It is inequity of this sort that has 
swelled the ranks of the dissatisfied. 

Much has been made of tax eva- 
sion in France. It is certainly not 
as frowned upon among my people 
as It IS in the English-speaking coun- 
tries But French Treasury officials 
believe that loss of revenue from 
tax evasion is only half as great as 
from the disproportionate privileges 
established by the taxation system 
The damaging effect of inflation 
and uneconomic taxation in France 
is reinforced by two political fac- 
tors fear of war and fear of Com- 
munist influence at home. Added 
to this IS the confusion resulting 
from the rather contradictory econ- 
omic systems with which the short- 
lived governments experiment The 
result Private capital in\cstment 
for new means of production has 
almost ceased to flow 
In whate\er direction we turn — 
peasants, workers, industrialists, 
tradesmen — few are willing to take 
a risk Everyone is thinking in 
terms of security And everyone 
wants his security protected by the 
state This oblc'ision gives the 
French economy an increasingly 
static character, which is, unfortun- 
ately, in line with the traditional 
French distrust of change 
The greatest paradox in the 
French character is that, while our 
history has been a long succession of 
political changes, we are extremely 
conservative when it comes to our 
economic and social way of life. It 
is far easier for us to accept new 


WITH FRANCS? 

political ideas than new methods of ' 
v/ork or even new eating habits. Wc : 
would like to preserve our estab- r 
lished way of life and pass it on un^ , 
changed to the next generation. 

But much as we may dislike it, 
the time has come for us to realize 
that unless we shortly make some 
drastic changes in our life and work 
we cannot continue to play a major 
role in world affairs 

To begin with, France must 
achieve a minimum of political sta- 
bilit) Because of the traditional 
fear of a strong executive, the 1946 
Constitution went too far in vesting 
so much political power in parlia- 
ment In 1953 the government un- 
dertook revision of the Constitu- 
tion; this programme should be 
completed The parliament must be 
made responsible for its action when 
It forces a government to resign. It 
IS unfair and inefficient that the 
French parliament should vote 
cabinets out of office without re- 
sponsibility for the consequences. 

A stable currency is at least as 
important as a stable government. 
Only it confidence in the currency 
IS restored will it be possible to 
undertake the indispensable mod- 
ernization of France’s antiquated 
industrial and agricultural equip- 
ment. 

The most urgent task ahead is the 
modernization of French agricul- 
ture A British farmer produces 
food for nearly 50 fellow citizens, a 
French farmer for only six. In 
France there is one agricultural 



m fm^irs wrong with francb 


school for every 57,000 farmers, as 
» against one for every 3,300 farmers 
!jn Germany; France has one agri- 
cultural adviser for every 6,000 
farmers, as against Holland’s one 
^ for every 240. 

Agricultural experts have esti- 
jnated that with the proper methods 
France could feed 70 million people 
— 27 million more than her present 
population. Yet at present she is 
importing cereals, sugar, fruits, 
vegetables, eggs and dairy products 
at heavy expense. 

Protectionist devices which make 
the French economy rigid ^md pro- 
duction costs high must be abol- 
ished. France is badlv in need of 
anti-cartel legislation And she must 
reconsider the aid now given to 
producers and exporters Free com- 
petition, not subsidy, is the wa\ to 
economic health It is impossible, 
for example, for the government to 
go on buying alcohol from French 
distillers at four times the world 
price and selling most of it at a 75 
per cent loss • 

The tax system must be reformed 
sp as to spread the burden more 
fairly and create incentive for pro- 
ductive investment Nationalized 
industries must operate on balanced 
budgets. And the present controls 
on French imports must be lifted 
■ if France wants other nations to 
buy her products she will have to 
buy theirs. 

Unfortunately, the drastic re- 
forms needed in the French eco- 
ncxnic system are not m the mak- 


ing. Nor is it likely that they will 
be made until France determines 
the role she wants to play in the 
construction of a new Europe, a 
Europe offering greater economic 
opportunity and military security 
Actually, no serious progress can 
be made towards this goal if there 
IS no basic agreement as to the part- 
ners and the ties that should bind 
them French public opinion is at 
present divided between those who 
advocate a bigger Europe compris- 
ing all Western European countries 
including the United Kingdom, 
and those who accept the idea of a 
smaller Europe of which France and 
German\ are the main partners 
The British Government has.rc- 
peatedK explained that the United 
Kingdom could not assume strong 
political ties with continental Eu- 
rope because of her responsibilities 
with the Commonwealth 
If greater Europe cannot be built 
now, therefore, we must try to build 
a smaller Europe which would rec- 
oncile France and Cicrmans on a 
lasting basis through strong com- 
mon interests Such was Robert 
Schuman’s goal when in 1950 he 
launched the idea of the European 
Coal and Steel Community which 
Jean Monnet is now implementing.* 
A common market for heavy in- 
dustry is only the first stage in a 
programme which should gradually 
embrace the other sectors of Eu- 
rope’s economy, as well as a com- 

* See *'Mr Europe/* The Reader*! Digest, 
May, 1953. 



NOW / Here comes your 

Wisdom Toothbrush 

in the smart hygienic 

^ T 7 '^ 

r PACK! 

T TERE’S the long-lasting, correa-shape 
”*■ Wisdom toothbrush packed to per- 
fection in a smart, transparent plastic 
case. The “V” pack is not just a wrapper, 
to be thrown away when you take out 
the brush for use, but a strong, durable 
container that wiU protect your Wisdom 
from dust and dirt wherever it may be 
— so handy when travellmg ! Ask at 
your store for Wisdom Toothbrush m 
the “V” pack. 


Distributors 
J L Mortsorty Son & 
Jones {India) Ltd , 
PO Box 6521 y 
Bombay 26. 



LpNG-LASTING 

CORRECT-SHAPE TOOTHBRUSH 



THE EEADER^S DiCEST 


defence and a common politi- 
authority. The next immediate 
is the treaty on the European 
' Dnence Community which aims at 
^re-arming Germany while prevent- 
ing the rebirth of German mili- 
tarism. 

A large section of French public 
Opinion balks at the prospect of 
Carman rearmament at a time 
when Germany has achieved a spec- 
tacular economic recovery Their 
motives are varied The neutralists 
believe that a united Germany could 
remain neutral between East and 
West The Berlin conference has 
shattered their hopes 
* The traditionalists cannot accept 
the idea of the French national 
army with its glorious past disap 
pearing overnight into a European 
army. A few of them still believe 
Aat the counter-weight to German 
power should be found, as in 1914, 
in a Franco- Russian alliance. They 
grossly misjudge the relative 
stren^ of the Soviet Union and 
of Germany. 

The last segment of opposition 
comes from those French interests 
which have for decades benefited 
from high tariffs, quotas and gov- 
ernment subsidies. They are reso- 
lutely opposed to the idea of a com- 
mon market which would mean the 
loss of their privileged positions. 

In the present plight of the 
iFrench economy, German compcti- 
rijl^Would certainly be damaging, 
mpxme has wittily remarked that 


French-German integration — the 
base for European integration — 
would be much easier if the Ger- 
mans would get up an hour later 
and take an hour more for lunch. 
Yet France has no reason to lack 
confidence. If her agricultural pro- 
duction IS lower per acre than Ger- 
many 's, it is greater in volume Ger- 
many IS richer in coal, but France 
is richer in water power, iron ore 
and bauxite And if France adds to 
her domestic potential the indus- 
trial, mineral and agricultural re- 
sources of her overseas possessions, 
there is no reason why she should 
fear German competition What the 
French need to do is to get up an 
hour earlier and take an hour IcfSs 
for lunch ^ 

If France and Germany continue 
as sovereign states, the chances arc 
that Germany will continue her 
dynamic expansion while France 
slides farther downhill. But if the 
two nations integrate their econo- 
mies, France will find herself com- 
pelled to make the reforms indis- 
pensable to her recovery. 

No great reform has ever been 
accomplished without faith. In their 
present national framework the 
French cannot find the necessary 
faith. But in the larger framework 
of a European community they 
are bound to find both the faith and 
the incentive to carry on the civil- 
izing mission which has been 
theirs for centuries in Europe and 
m the world. 




6g million jars a year — i,ooo different uscf 

Mr. Chesebrough' s 
Wonder Jelly 

Bv Mort Weisinger 


ONG-DiSTANCE swimmcrs use day in 1859 Robert A Chesebrough, 

It to protect their bodies i struggling 22-y car-old Brooklyn 

fi^om cold waters Film stars use it to chemist, heard newsboys shouting 

simulate teardrops Photographers reports of a fabulous oil strike in 

smear it on negatives to eliminate Pennsylvania. Chesebrough had 

scratches. Motorists dab it on their s[X!ciali/ed in refining cannel oil 

windscreens to prevent frosting A into paraffin Now he sensed that 

razor-blade manufacturer uses it by the discovers of r’ch, natural petro- 

the ton to coat millions of blades Icum ihrcattncd his paraffin busi- 

against rust Blind people use it ness He decided to turn his refining 

to k ep their finger-tips soft tor know-how to the pcti oleum field, 

reading Braille Soldiers have used and invested his sav mgs in a railway 

It as a substitute for shaving ticket to Titusville, the heart of the 

cream oil boom 

This versatile substance is a pc- The \oung chemist strode over 
troleum jelly sold under the trade the oil fields, eves sharp, mind alert, 

name “Vaseline ” Developed almost and stopped to watch a workman 

100 years ago as an inexpensive heal- scraping and cleaning the rods of an 

mg balm, this tasteless, colouilcss, oil pump “Rod waxl the work- 

odourless jelly is used by people all man complained Biggest nuisance 

over the world in a thousand differ- in the oil fields.'* 

ent ways, almost none of which its When Chesebrough inquired 
inventor had in mind. what rod wax was, the workman 

Vaseline petroleum jelly was dis- explained that it w'as a paraffin-wax- 
covered by accident. One summer like oil residue which had to be rc^ 

Condensed from Coronet 




MR. CHESEBROUGH'S WONDER JELLY 


sStItoved regularly. “The boys curse 

because it fouls the pumps,*’ he 
f-Went on, “but if thev burn or cut 
^tibemselves they come running for 
"'‘die stuff and rub it on It works like 
a charm 

When Chesebrough returned to 
'bis boarding-house in Brooklyn he 
earned a box filled with the bother- 
some rod wax Oils had been used 
as skin remedies throughout the 
ages, he recalled It was possible 
that some ingredient in this wax 
possessed special medical qualities, 
and that it could be made in a 
Jaboratorv. 

In the months that followed, 
'Chesebrough e\ol\cd a process for 
extracting a concentrated residue 
from petroleum The final result 
was a tra\ of translucent jelK 

To test the healing powers of his 
new balm Chesebrough became a 
human guinea pig, inflicting scores 
of cuts and scratches on his bodv 
and scaring his hands with flame 
and acid. Sure enough, the strange 
new emollient magicalU soothed 
and helped to heal his wounds 
Chesebrough then gave some of the 
jelly to construction men, ditch-dig- 
gers and bricklayers, and suggested 
that they treat their occupational 
hurts with It. When they reported 
beneficial results Chesebrough knew 
he was in business. 

Now the young chemist invented 
dse name “Vaseline” for his prod- 
Ifict* and set up a factory to manu- 

('** Although the word was arbitrarily coined, 
H ptcbohl^ comet from the German Wasser, 
the Greek ilmon, **oltve oil.*' 


facture it. He sent samples to 
physicians, apothecaries and scien- 
tific societies, then sat back waiting 
for orders He received polite replies 
— and an occasional request for 
more free samples. 

Undaunted, Chesebrough em- 
barked on what was probably the 
first give-away campaign Obtain- 
ing a horse and wagon, he set out 
for upper New York State with 
thousands of one-ounce sample bot- 
tles He gave a bottle to every per- 
son he encountered en route and 
stopped at farms to leave one with 
the woman of the house The im- 
portant link in each area was, of 
course, the local chemist, who 
would incvitablv feel the demand 
created bv the samples 

Chesebrough ’s wagon ride proved 
so successful that he deployed a 
dozen horse-and-buggy hawkers 
into New Jersey and Connecticut 
Within a few years the public was 
buving Vaseline jellv at the rate of 
one )ar a minute Chesebrough’s 
faith m his product was confirmed 
when the medical profession ac- 
cepted it 

The balm earned special respect 
in January 1912 when the Equitable 
Life Assurance Building in New 
York caught fire, many of the oc- 
cupants were burned, and pounds, 
of the jelly were used to ease their 
pain. Since then petroleum jelly has 
been recommended for minor burns 
by the Red Cross. It keeps the 
burned area sealed off against air 
borne infection and, when com^ 




THE READER^S DIGEST 


with a sterile pressure band- 
decreases the loss of essential 
^ aids. 

«\,‘Stunts, campaigns and word-of- 
Ittouth recommendation won intcr- 
'Ihiitional fame for Vaseline jelly It 
"was used by Pearv on his Arctic 
teks — It didn’t freeze at 40 degrees 
Dclow zero. In jungle regions na- 
tives have used jars of the jellv as 
money because it does not turn 
fancid under the tropical sun 
. When a new emplo\cc winced 
at the report that natives in India 
buttered their bread with Vaseline 
jelly, Chesebrough roared “Young 
man, our jelly is good to eat — I’ve 
fi^ten pounds of it myself This 
Was true; Chesebrough ate a spoon- 


ful every day of his life, considering 
It a general cure-all. When, in his 
late 50s, he fell ill with pleurisy, he 
made his nurse anoint him with the 
substance fiom head to toe — and 
promptly recovered 

Chesebrough died in 1933 at the 
age of 96 On his death-bed he 
boasted that he owed his longevity 
to the daily do«e of his product. 

Today the Chesebrough Manu- 
facturing Company sells some 69 
million jars a year in about 100 
countries Customers constantly 
write to the Company, relaying new 
uses for the product One of the 
most recent A number of sports- 
men report that blobs of it serve as 
excellent bait for lainbow trout* 




Agnes Allen’s Law 

Ftedcftc\ Lewis Allen in This Weel{ 

ONCF knew a unncrsity student who was much impressed with the 
fame that came to people who got their names tacked on to some uni- 
versal law such as Newton’s Law or (Gresham’s Law So m due course he 
came up with Zahner’s Law (his name was Louis Zahner), which read . 
“If you play with anything long enough, it’ll break ” 

Obsessed wnth my own desire for fame, I enunciated Allen’s Law : 
“Everything is more comjilicaied than it looks to most peof)le ’’ This 
seemed to me to apply neatly to those problems that look very simple 
until you have to tackle them, aid then rc\eal entanglements that the 
people who make speeches about them haven’t even dreamed of I sat 
back well pleased with myselt 

But then my wife saw the great light of Zahnensm And when she 
produced Agnes Allen’s Law, I realized not only that we had all been 
outdistanced but that at one stroke human wisdom had been advanced 
to an unprecedented degree. This is Agnes Allen’s Law . “Almost any- 
thing IS easier to get into than to get out of ” 

Here is a law which should be graven on the hearts of people who are 
invited to serve on committees, who arc sent contracts to sign, who arc 
thinking of acquiring a dog, or who contemplate amatory auachmctits, '^ 



The "gentle exhalation" which 
makes life possible on this planet 



I 



By Donald Culross Peattie 

Noted botanist and authoi 

N OW ONCh AGAIN the Spring hangs 
out those lovely tapestries 
with which leaves furnish this, our 
planet home It wouldn’t be home 
without them, the love of them lies 
deep in the human heart 
It is an old trick of mine to think 
about leaves when I cannot sleep I 
let my mind go first to the great 
oak outside my window, with its 
half acre or so of leaf surface, all of 
It doing the tree, and me, a silent 
good I listen to far-away foliage I 
have known, to the high seething of 


the silken needles of pines 
woodland cottage, or to the hte| 
rustle of a chestnut-tree. And 1 1 
again the stiff rattle of palm lea« 
in the trade wind on a tropic shou 

Take a leaf — take any leaf— ai 
look at It closely You will see 
the two sides are unlike the upf 
surface is darker, often glossy ar 
waxen, the underside paler, son 
times with a protective coating 
down Because it is thus two-facedtj 
a leaf can perform its two separate^ 
functions respiration on the lowcjjpj 
surface, work with the sun on tht’l 
upper 

Trees must breathe good swcct,^ 
oxygen to keep alive It’s oxygen;>| 
entering into a man’s blood, that! 
kindles the fires of human energy- 
So with a leaf It too must take in 1 
oxygen in order to release, from th(S“^ 
sugars and starches packed away 
It as stored food, the en^^rgy to cx-'ij 
pand upon the summer air and SCtJ 
to lift, by the power of growth, 
sapling into a forest giant. -g 

A leaf breathes through the poresl 
on Its sheltered underside — so manyi^ 
and minute that they average about.^ 
100 to an area the size of the loopj 
in the letter P on this page. Thest^ 
pores are usually slit-shaped, like thc^j 
pupils ot a cat’s eyes— and just as 
cat’s pupils expand in darkness 
contract in bright light, so the porc?Ii 
of a leaf respond to atmospncriCij 
changes On hot, dry days, lest thcj 
leaf wilt by water loss throug^^ 
evaporation, its pores may 2tlmo8|| 



mk AT 


:4io^ — but not completely or it 
, would smother. When the pores 
;open their widest, the leaf, and so 
,the whole tree, breathes easier 

The pores of a leaf, even at the 
top of a tall tree, help to bring water 
up from the roots deep in earth 
Evaporation at the pores causes a 
partial vacuum within the cells, 
and this suctionlikc effect is com- 
municated from cell to cell back 
through the leaf stalks and twigs, 
along the boughs, down the tiunk 
Boosted by root pressure from below 
— the same which causes the sap to 
rise in sugar maples — thicad-linc 
xolumns of water are thus sucked 
up, like lemonade through a straw 
^nd this goes on, dead against grav- 
ity, 100 feet up and more, to the 
breeze-tossed ciown of a great oak 
or maple 

Meanwhile, on the upper side of 
the leaf, the side exposed to the sun- 
light, a primal work ot the world is 
going on For .eons before this atom- 
ic age the green leaf has been using 
solar energ\ to power the greatest 
industrial plant on earth No wheel 
turns in it, no smoke pollutes the 
9ir round it, instead, leaves piirifv 
the atmosphere This foliage factorv 
— which first, of course, serves ^he 
tree itself, thus giving us timber, 
pulp and plastics — uses for machin- 
ta-y the green stuff in the leaf called 
^chlorophyll. And with chloroph)!! 
ttic leaf IS able to capture part of 
Uliat tremendous cascade of atomic 
which falls upon our planet 
Sap the sun. 


As each tiny particle of solar en- 
ergy (called a photon) collides with 
the green in the leaf, the energy 
leaps to the chlorophyll, setting it 
aglow With this energy the chloro- 
phyll smashes open the molecules 
of the water (H^O) and of the car- 
bon dioxide (COj) which the leaf 
has taken in through its pores from 
the air, and silently reassembles 
these atoms of oxygen, carbon and 
hydrogen into new patterns con- 
stituting sugars and starches, the 
basic foods in the leaf Since it is 
with the eneigy from photons that 
the leaf synthesi/cs its foods, the 
whole elaborate but speedy process 
IS called photosynthesis Through- 
out the sunlit houis in every part 
ot the world everv leaf on every tree 
Is doing this work 

No wonder chlorophyll has been 
called the green blood of the world* 
It IS carried in minute green disks 
w^hich, like the corpuscles in our 
own blood, can move about almost 
as if they led a life of their own. 
When the sunshine is too strong 
thes can turn edge-on, or sink, or 
flee to the sides of the cells When 
the skies grow grey, they may do a 
halt-roll and turn broadside to make 
the mr)st of the light, or rise to the 
top of the cell, like fish coming up 
in cloud) weather to bite 
And leaves help to provide us 
with the very breath ot life For 
when the leaf by photosynthesis 
breaks up those molecules of water 
and carbon dioxide into their ele- 
ments, there is a lot of oxygen left 





pm that rfic leaf itself <ifesn*t use. on a hot <iay you enter into a wo^. 
TTus it breathes out through its So, summer-long, a green, serene 
pores, m such quantities that all our benediction is upon us. In autumn 

air is wonderfully freshened. When every leaf seems to have put on new 

factory chimneys pour deadly gases colour. Not so; the reds and yellows 

into the sky, the oxygen exhaled by are the natural pigments of certain 

leaves purifies the polluted air The foods stored by leaves which are 

winds of the world, for evei storm- merely masked by chlorophyll in 

ing round our spinning globe, the summer. We sec orange in 

thoroughly mix and distribute the autumn foliage when red shines 

leaf-breath. Without that gentle ex- through yellow, and mauve when 

halation all animal life on earth red begins to change chemically 

would, like a candle lowered into a Frost has nothing to do with it It 

well full of carbon dioxide, long is the leaves themselves which end 

ago have flickered out their own lives in this blaze of 

Thus the man who has a fine old glorv Each leaf produces a growth 

shade tree over his roof lives under of callous cells at the base of its 

a sort of oxygen tent Moreover, the stalk, this cuts ofl the water supply 

foliage not only tempers the wind and makes a tear-line, like the per- 

and shuts out the glare but some- forations on a sheet of stamps,, so 

what air-conditions his house For that an> breeze may pull the leaf 

the air round leaves is faintly off, or it may fall of its own weight 

cooled by the evaporation from In the end, it will turn to mould, 

them, just as a lake or river makes enriching earth, or, raked into some 

the neighbourhood cooler \ou feel bonfire, may rise again in a last blue 

this suciden, delicious coolness when twirl of pungent smoke. 



Another Language 

Pan Ameripan World Anways employee in Accra advertised 
that he wanted a paraftin refrigerator, received this reply “I have 
chc honour most respectfully to submit this my humble application 
soliciting for employment as a paraffin refrigerator I successfully 
passed the seventh standard at C)bodcn Methodist Middle School 
and hold documents testifying my character and ability ” (Neu York 
Herald Tribune) A Filipiiio schooItcachcr wfotc thc following Icttcr 
of resignation to the American superintendent in her best English . 
*‘l wish to rcsignatc My works are too many and my salaries arc 
too few Moreover, my principal makes many lovirtgs to which I 
say ‘Oh, not ’ ” (The Penn^Trail) 




Is AMERICA 

Gome TO Have a Depression? 

Ry Ralph Robey 

A disttngmshed American business analyst weighs 
I the probabilities and gives an encouraging answer 


1 AM OFTEN asked a question of 
worldwide economic and politi- 
cal importance “Is America go- 
ing to have a depression No one — 

whether economist or businessman 
— can say that he really knows the 
answer The best one can do is ex- 
amine the present situation and ar- 
rive at a judgment as lo probabilities 
Let us begin by asking why 
America should be worrying about 
a depression at all That is an easy 
one, according to the pessimists 
Fifst For the past year or so 
Am^ nca has been riding what has 
sometimes been called “a stale 
boom ” By this is meant that since 
1940 — with the exception of a mild 
downturn in 1949 and the even mild- 
er let-down of the past few months 

R^lph Robf\ taught at Columbia Unntr 
sity’s School of Business tor 20 years, has 
been financial editor of the New 'York Fven 
tng Post and economic adviser to the U S 
National Association of Manufacturers Hi. 
first article, written just 25 years ago, was a 
prediction that the then -roaring stock-market 
boom could not continue 


— the country has been enjoying a : 
period of extraordinary prosperity. 
It is only natural, therefore, to ' 
how much longer such good times ^ 
can continue, whether we must not » 
expect a real old-fashioned depres- 
Sion, just as we have had previously ' 
after such a period of prosperity^ 
and especially after a major war. 

Second For years business has 
been spending money on factories- 
and machines at a rate far beyond 
anything in our history How arc 
we going to continue to buy all of 
the goods that we are now capable 
of turning out and must continue 
to turn out if we are to remain 
prosperous^ 

Third The prosperity we have; 
been having, so we are told, has 
been largely phony It started with 
the terrific spending of World War 
II When that was over we ran, 
into the enormous backlog of con: 
sumer demand accumulated during 
the depression when we didn’t^ 
have the money to buy what we 
wanted and during the war when' 



If the Amencao ecotiomy sneezeii* 
ling area gets pneumonia America and Russia 
do more world trade — Europe, and even 
Britain and the sterling area, less— than before 
the war. But while the Russian empire is al* 
most a closed economic system, American 
imports and exports are far greater than be- 
fore, and cloliar prices influence more markets 
than before. Moreover, American industry 
grows increasingly dependent on foreign raw 
materials So Britain and the sterling area — 
indeed, France, Belgium and other systems* 
—earn more vital dollars and gold reserves, 
compared with before the war, by their ex- 
ports of raw materials to America: rubber, 
uranium, cocoa, jutc, ores, etc If American 
business falU ok even a little way, American 
imports of these foreign raw materials fall olf 
a lot, and our reserves of gold and dollars are 
then imperilled, )ust as in 1947, 194^9 and 
1951 

Americans can aiford a recession in busi- 
ness of about 10 per cent, but that might 
mean a drop of 25 per cent in American 
imports from the sterling area 
— Graham Hutton, British economist and broad- 
caster, author of We Too Can Prosper ^Allen 6c 
Unwin, London), a recent compaiison of the 
American and British industrial methods 


we waniea was nor 
lidng produced. That 
pent-up demand, plus our 
ttew status in world 
affairs, brought roaring 
prosperity through 1946, 

1947 and 1948 Then, just 
trhen we were about to 
go into a tailspin. along 
came Korea to pro\ idc 
another shot-in-the-arm 

But now that is all over 
International tension is 
easing. Military spending 
is declining International 
aid IS gradually coming to 
an end. 

But let us take a look at 
the facts on the other side 
—facts which cannot be 
ignored if one is to ha\e 
anything approaching a 
balanced judgment of the 
business outlook 

First It IS unquestion- 
ably true that we Ameri- 
t:ans have been riding a “stale 
X)om.” But in spite of this rela- 
tively long period of prosperity, we 
girc not today producing a larger 
(volume of goods than long-term 
bistory indicates as normal 

If we go back to, say, 1880 and 
draw a straight line to show ttie 
tormal rate of growth in national 
production, we find we are just 
about where we should be This 
mezns that if trouble comes it will 
ktot be because we have attained 
lUch a high level of production 
that it IS basically unsupportable. 


Second It is also unquestionably 
true that for the past ten years busi- 
ness has been investing incredible 
amounts in new factories and new 
machines And certainly in some in- 
dustries we do have the capacity to- 
day to turn out more goods than can 
be sold at a profit But that situation 
has been customary throughout the 
country’s history, except during wars 
and immediate post-war peri<^s. 

Third Granted that business has 
been subjected to a scries of “arti- 
ficial” stimulants over the past sev- 
eral years, it does not follow that 




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s^iUbts are hteAed in 
order for it to remain prosperous. 
What such stimulants give is froth : 
inflation, distortion of markets and 
strains throughout the economic 
system. Such froth is not an aid to 
prospenty; on the contrary, it must 
always lead to corrections. That is 
what happened in 1949, and that is 
what has been happening during 
the past few months 

And, incidentally, it was not the 
outbreak of the Korean War which 
saved America from depression in 
1950; the readjustment had been 
completed and business had turned 
up months before the war started. 
It turned up for the simple reason 
that there was nothing in the econ- 
omic condition of that time which 
was of such character and force as 
to cause a depression And the same 
IS true today 

Just what IS there, then, in the 
present situation that might create 
a real depression, rather than a mild 
readjustment? 

Is there too much instalment 
credit? The dollar volume is at a 
record level, but it is still propor- 
donate to national income And this 
is generally true of private debts as 
a whole 

Are stocks high? Yes, they arc 
not only high but in need of cor- 
rection, just as in 1949 — and such 
corrertion has been taking place 

Is there too much home-building 
and construction? Certainly not in 
tl^s of the needs of our people. 


Btrt diat is itSf half dfe 
ture. There arc three tremendously 
powerful forces on the positive side. 

Ftrst‘ The rise in population is ter- 
rific Each year there are between 
two and three million more people 
who have to be fed, clothed, housed 
and, in time, provided with all of 
those goods and services which 
make up the standard of living. 

Second The whole world is in 
the midst of a technological revolu- 
tion of unparalleled proportions All 
of this takes enormous sums of 
money. And such spending cannot 
bt stopped — for the simple reason 
that no business can afford not to 
keep up with its competitors 

Third The present Administra- 
tion in Washington is determined 
to do whatever is necessary to hold 
business acuvitv on a reasonably 
even keel A comprehensive pro- 
gramme has been prepared to assure 
this result Its broad outlines are 
(i) a plentiful money supply at low 
interest rates, (2) reduction of taxes 
to encourage investment, (3) easing 
of down-payments and terms for 
home building and modcrnr/ation; 
(4) broadening and liberalization of 
old-age, Social Security and uncm 
ployment payments 

With such a programme, with 
the great underlying strength pro- 
vided by technological develop- 
ments and population growth and 
with an economic system at present 
free of major air pockets, the future 
looks bright. 




One Million Houses a Year 


By Gilbat Burck and Sanford S Partner 


P ROBABLY no American industr\ 
has had more heads shaken ovci 
It than housing For the past 
four or five years man\ economists 
have predicted a slump in the in- 
dustry Only recently an English 
economist, Cohn Clark, lamented 
that housing provided no hope for 
America’s faltering 1954 economy 
because costs are too high. 

The fact is that the housing mar- 
ket — barring war or depression — 
today holds promise of providing 
the great U.S “growth situation” 
of the 1950S and 1960s Housing is 
the only one of the natu'n’s four 
largest markets (the others are food, 
clothing and cars) that has strong 
potentialities for growing faster 
than the economy as a whole — and 

C^ndtnsed 


A booming housing industry may 
well be the foundation for American 
prosperity in the coming years 

It’s close to a 20-thousard-million- 
dollar market, alread\ larger than 
the Car market And, because new 
houses mean new furnituie, ap- 
pliances, shops, roads and schools, 
housebuilding is bound to play a 
portentous role in keeping the whole 
American economy prosperous. 

A revolution in housing is going 
on now in America, and these arc 
the changes that have produced it: 

People need a lot of housing. The, 
need for housing, even after the 
building boom of the past eight 
years, is now much greater than 

om FoTtuM 


» im ONE mujON a rmn 

anyone thought it would 
be. The wartime and post- 
war marriage boom is tap- 
ering off, but not so much 
as once appeared likely; 
and single people are set- 
ting up more households 
than were expected a few 
ycitrs ago So 1,100,000 
housing units are needed 
annually just to satisfv minimum boom for the rest of the IQ50S And 
requirements in the \ears 1955-59 ^ new boom will begin in the 1960s, 

This IS the rock-bottom demand, when war and post-war babies form 
based on the net increase m house- households of then own 
holds each ye^ir, plus an allowance Better houses are costing less The 
for destruction and vacancies major obstacle to replacing sub 

There is a second kind of housing standard houses was high costs To- 
need, if the nation is to raise its dav, however, leading builders arc 
standard of housing as high as its using mass-production principles to 
over-all living standard has risen, offset the high costs of everything 
For example, the number of fami- that goes into a house The day is 
lies with $4,000 to $7,500 in dispos- near when almost anvbody with a 
able cash income (1953 dollars) has job can afford to own a house 
increased more than 300 per cent In the '20s, 90 per cent of new 

since 1929. In the 1920s such a houses were lathed and plastered 

family paid from $12,000 to $22,500 Today nearly 50 per cent are getting 
for a house Yet since 1929 the num- “dry” walls of sheet material, 
ber of houses worth $12,000 to Frames are being pre-cut Walls 
$22,500 (in 1953 dollars) has in- are assembled on the ground and 
creasedby only 30 per cent. In short, .“tilted” up Roofs are built as 
some II million families in the mid- trusses, wholly supported by the cx- 
dlc bracket are living below their tenor walls, so the interior floor, 
1929 standard of housing The walls and ceiling can be finished as 

same is true of other income one loom and standardized parti- 

groups. Just to bring American tions installed in a few hours, 
xamily income and housing back to So far it is the mass builders who 
their 1929 relationship, therefore, arc making the spectacular advances, 
would call for an estimated addi- Earl Smith of San Francisco saves 
donal 300,000 new houses a year. about 15 per cent in costs by his in- 
These 1,400,000 houses a year gemous method of using slab floors 
; IMkDunts to an ever-normal housmg and flat roofs. And the Levitt fam- 


Britain is now one of the world's leading 
exporters of prefabricated houses, which go to 
more than 70 countries The word “prefab” 
was born ten years ago It came into our 
language after a Saturday night broadcast in 
March 1944, ''^hen Mr Churchill (as he was 
then) announced that an attack on the housing 
shortage was to lx made by “prefabricated or 
emergency houses ” 




cannot 

wither . . . 


Beauty that women desire . 
Beauty that men admire .. 
The glow that only 

SLEEP can give 

The sleep that only 







98 


THE RE^DER^S^ DfOEST 


ily, which is building a city of 60,000 
in three years at Lcvittown, Penn- 
sylvania,* provides an outstanding 
example of the way many little ad- 
vances can total one large advance. 

The Levitts’ $10,500 house would 
sell at about $14,000 if built to 
order, and their $16,000 house 
would sell at about $22,000 What 
is more, the Levitts probably make 
as good a profit as does the builder 
of made-to-order houses. 

But mass-builders are being 
threatened by the prefabricated 
house. Heralded for 20 years, the 
prefab has been retarded by high 
costs, low volume, bad design, local 
codes, insufficient distribution Now 
its inherent advantages seem to be 
enabling it to compete with on-site 
mass-producers. 

Financing ts easy and cheap, and 
U,S, Government policy is to /^eep 
it so. Today’s financing enables 
people to own a new house about 
as cheaply as they can rent an old 
one. Thirty years ago mortgages 
cost from six to ten per cent, and 
many second mortgages cost as 
much as 25 to 30 per cent. Most 
mortgages were subject to call after 
a short period. 

Then the Government got into 
house-financing. Twenty-five years 
ago, during the Hoover Adminis- 
tration, it set up the Home Loan 
Bank to insure the deposits of 
saving-and-loan associations, and 
the Home Owners Loan Corpora- 

See _*'Birth of _a City/’ The Reader’s 


tion to purchase and rewrite “dis- 
tress” mortgages. In 1934 it created 
the Federal Housing Administra- 
tion to insure mortgages at low 
rates And after World War II it 
established the Veterans Adminis- 
tration loan system, which insured 
mortgage monc) for veterans at 
four per cent and no down payment. 

FHA’s practice of making ad- 
vance commitments has enabled 
builders to finance large-scale de- 
velopments and work out the tech- 
niques of quantity production FHA 
and VA dominate large-scale resi- 
dential construction, thev under- 
write the financing of nearly three- 
quarters of the new construction in 
the $6,ooo-to-$i2,ooo range, and 
80 per cent of all rental housing. 

Hardly anybody in building wants 
to do anything with FHA except to 
liberalize it And that, in essence, is 
what the President’s Committee on 
Government Housing Policies has 
recently recommended. 

To stimulate remodelling and re- 
habilitation, FHA and the National 
Association of Home Builders have 
mounted a campaign to persuade 
builders to take houses as “trade- 
ins,” like dealers take secondhand 
cars as part payment for new ones. 
The President’s Advisory Commit- 
tee has recommended that FHA en- 
courage such “trade-ins” further. 

This, of course, will compete with 
new housing, but there should be 
plenty of business for both. As 
things now look, there will be more 



How a mechanical Sherloc\ Hfimes solves hnnsMs of eiiftffis each year 




The Detective 
Who Never Sleeps 


can’t go with you unless my 
grandma says it’s all right,” 
the little girl told the nice man 
'‘She's there inside the grocer’s 
shop She told me to wait out here.” 

“I'll go and ask her,” the nice 
mall said. 

In a moment the man came out. 
“Your grandma says it’s all right 
You come with me and we’ll get 
those pretty clothes I promised 
you.” • 

An hour later the Los Angeles 
Police Department was notified that 
the child had been found in the 
basement of a deserted house, too 
hysterical to describe the man who 
had 'criminally assaulted her there. 

There seemed no hope of finding 
the man. He had not, of course, 
spoken to her grandmother inside 


By Keith Monroe 

the grocer's shop Without a descrip- 
tion or a scrap of physical evidence 
the police faced an apparently im- 
possible task 

Nevertheless, police headquarters 
fed some questions into an electronic 
machine which, within five minutes, 
clicked out an answer Headquarters 
phoned the detective on the case. 
“The man you want is probably 
named Samuel Chenault He may 
live at 7782 Graham Avenue. We’ll 
send vou his photo and description.” 

That afternoon Chenault was ar- 
rested and questioned. Unnerved by 
the seeming omniscience of the 
police, he confessed even before the 
child identified him. He is now in 
prison. 

Chenault is not the first criminal 
in Los Angeles who has thought he 



committed a dctective-proof crime, 
only to be nabbed with tcrrifvmg 
speed. Seven high-powered burglars 
entered a building, cracked a safe 
and cvtractcd $15,000 (/5.000) in 
cash and negotiable securities They 
left no fingerprints, were seen by no 
Witnesses. However, police were 
knocking on the doors of their 
homes 40 minutes after the crime 

“How did you know it was us*^'* 
one of the cracksmen asked 

“A machine told us,” a detective 
said. “We call it our mechanical 
Sherlock Holmes ” 

Like the rest of us, a crook is a 
creature of habit He uses the same 
method of operation — even the 
same line of talk — over and o\cr 
again until it identifies him as 
readily as if he had left a visiting 
card Samuel Chenault was caught 
, because he had used the same 
“pretty clothes” offer to lure an- 
other child into a lonely spot six 
years before The machine searched 
the records of hundreds of child- 
attack cases . Chenault was the only 
man who had used that approach 
The cracksmen were spotted after 
the machine had sorted out names 
and addresses of criminals who had 
previously used the same method of 
breaking into a building, forcing a 
safe and leaving two doors open for 
escape. 

In a big-city police headquarters 
the identification files arc too huge 
for any detective to carry in his 
head — or to search by hand. That 
is why Los Angeles, where 72,000 


crime reports come in yearly, has 
put its reports on punched cards, 
which the electronic machine can 
search at the rate of six cards per 
second. This standard high-speed 
card sorter, a type found in indny 
business offices, is credited with 
cracking 700 to 800 Los Angeles 
cases per year 

To the criminal in handcuffs, the 
work of the machine often seems 
superhuman. For example a hold- 
up man walked into a Los Angeles 
wine merchant's and was met by a 
detective who was waiting for him 
How could the machine predict that 
that shop, which had never been 
held up, was likely to be held up on 
a given day at a given hour*^ 

It did this bv filtering out what 
the police call a crime pattern Pro- 
cessing hundreds of holdup reports 
fiom all parts of the city, it de- 
posited a number of cards record- 
ing similar jobs in the same slot. 
The cards had one geographical fac- 
tor in common each shop was near 
a cinema Evidently one unknown 
stick-up man liked to duck into the 
darkness of a cinema until the hue 
and cry from his robbery subsided 

The cards showed also that he 
liked to operate at about three-week 
intervals, on a I'hursday or Friday 
during the slack hours in midafter- 
noon. So the police selected three 
wine merchants near cinemas, and 
concealed a detective in each. One 
Friday the bandit walked in and the 
trap was sprung. 

Whenever cards piling up in one 



slot of the machine indicate a pat- 
tern for a senes of crimes, the re- 
sults are put into an information 
sheet circulated through the force. 
These bulletins are short and vividly 
worded, watch for the self-ser- 
vice SHOP GANG, or KNIT-CAP RAPIST 
TRIES AGAIN If cyc-witncsscs can 
describe the unidentified crook or 
his car, a staff artist draws a sketch 
to give policemen a fuller idea of 
what to look for 

One such bulletin broke up a 
highly successful gang of holdup 
men who raked in about /i3,5oo in 
1 8 robberies before being caught last 
\car These men entered self-service 
shops and herded customers to the 
rcG^r at gun point Thc\ wore masks, 
but witnesses occasionally caught a 
glimpse of the getaway car Cards 
accumulating in the same bracket 
gradually pieced together a descrip- 
tion of It A police artist drew an 
imaginary sketch, highlighting some 
of its distinguishing features From 
the sketch alone a pair of motor- 
c)Lle cops spotted the car They sig- 
nalled It to stop on the pretence of 
a speeding charge. Before the men 
in the car realized what was hap- 
pening, the policemen’s drawn re- 
volvers were in their faces. The 
evidence in the car convicted the 
bandits 

By analysing police statistics, the 
electronic card sorter ’jpotlights the 
sections of a city where crime is 
likely to occur, and indicates the 
days and hours when police strength 
should be highest. This is impor- 


tant, for the visible presence of uat' ; 
formed policemen is still the best 
crime preventive. 

These facts have brought expert . 
criminologists from all over the 
world to study the Los Angeles sys- 
tem By a happy chance Sir Arthur . 
Dixon, noted British criminal in-, 
vestigator, was present when the 
machine gave one of its more , 
Holmesian demonstrations. A rou- 
tine report of a car theft came in. 
Witnesses had seen the man who 
drove the car away he wore glasses, 
had bad teeth and was freckled. 

Mrs Rhoda Cross, who has been 
chief handmaiden to the machine 
ever since it was installed, went to a 
filing cabinet, drew out an armful 
of punched cards and fed them to 
the machine In a few minutes it 
spat out three cards. Mrs Cross 
glanced at them and interpreted: 
“The man who stole that car proba- 
bly lives in West Hollywood or 
Highland Park His name may be 
Stafford, Black or Szylkowski.* 
These are the three known car 
thieves who fill the ‘freckles, glasses, 
bad teeth’ description ” 

“Surely you don’t mean one of 
them IS necessarily the culprit,” Sir 
Arthur said. 

“No, indeed. They’re just sus- 
pects But wc can show those three 
pictures to each witness, and sec if 
he identifies one. Without the ma- 
chine, our witnesses might have to 
thumb through the photos of thou- 
sands of suspects.” As it turned out 


* These names are fictitious 



witnesses identified Black o£ robbery cards to find those with a 
Highland Park. similar locale ox modus operandi. 

/ No one would think that the No leads. 


; punch cards would have a combina- 
tion to indicate “butterfly tattooed 
“on left shin They don't And yet, 
Sifter a stranger had forced his wav 
into a woman's home and attacked 
her last year, the tattoo was the onlv 
distinguishing feature she could re- 
member A detective phoned head 
quarters and asked for the name of 
any criminal whose left shin was 
tattooed with a butterflv 
He got it The search took hours, 
'because from hundreds of thousands 
of cards the machine had to pick 
out those punched with Code No 
25: tattoo There were several hun- 
dred of these, each with the descrip- 
tion of the tattoo t>pewnttcn on it 
Clerks flipped through these hv 
hand until thev found one mention- 
ing a butterflv It bore the name of 
a known burglar and cx-consict. 
The housewife identified his pic- 
ture. He is now' serving a long 
sentence. 

Another classic illustration is the 


A month later another young 
actress was attacked Her screams 
brought help quickly enough to save 
her. This happened near the scene 
of the Sosyeva murder Again the 
attacker had been hiding in bushes, 
and had v/ielded some blunt, heavy 
weapon. 

This time the man had left a foot- 
pi mt The machine plucked out all 
the cards in which footprints were 
mentioned None of the prints 
matched this new one It hunted 
for cards showing crimes against 
actresses Still no leads 

Fmallv, as a long shot, someone 
suggested isking the robot what 
other crimes had occurred latclv 
near the scene of the two attacks 

It was the ke\ ^Sorting bv area, 
the machine dealt out a pattern a 
burglar was operating frcquentlv, 
at about the same hour that the girls 
had been assaulted, and in the same 
part of the city. He worked .it fairly 
regular intervals, and would be due 


Anja Sosvcva murder case Anva, 
who plavcd small parts in films, was 
taking a night-school course in dra- 
matics. One evening she was on the 
way to a rehearsal when someone 
lumped from behind a hush, club- 
feed her and raped her She died a 
itw hours Inter 

^ All the girl's acquaintances were 

i vcstigated and found innocent 
Ife machine sorted all attack cards, 
^I^c^ds and even strong-arm- 


again soon. 

An information sheet went out 
“Between 8 and 9 pm. some night 
this week a burglai may go into the 
side window of some house in the 
area bounded by Bcvcrlv Boule- 
vard, Vermont, Santa Monica and 
Normandie. He is probably the 
Sosyeva murderer.” 

A clutch of plain-clothes men and 
patrol cars infiltrated the area each 
evening. Police were hiding in tree- 




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w 


tops and under hedges 'when a 
young man named DeWitt Cook 
tried to enter a window of a house. 
His shoes matched the print left by 
the rapist After long questioning 
- he confessed, with sufficient detail 
to convince everyone, that he had 
killed Anya Sosyeva Burglary was 
his profession, murder and assault 
were mere diversions. Psychiatrists 


found him sane; he was execufed. ' 
Solving — and preventing— crimes 
keeps the Los Angeles automaton 
working night and day. If all cities 
had similar punch-card records fun- 
nelled into one clearing house, crime 
fighting would be easier for them 
all, law-abiding citizens would have 
more protection and crooks would 
have more trouble per policeman. 



Progress 

4=?yMERiCAN Indians used to broadcast messages by holding a wet 
blanket over the fire Now we’ve got television and get to see the 
wet blanket in person. ^The Anuntan Eagle 


Cartoon Quips 

Man to estate agent* “What we had m mind is something in 
the three-to-five thousand range that sells for no more than ten 

thousand “ —Collier’s 

Wife, leaving cinema, to husband “I wish just once they’d have 
as good a picture this week as they’re going to have next week 

- ChiLdgi) fribum 

Fiance to girl looking at ring “If you think that one is small, 
you should have seen the one I could afford 

- The Saturday Evening Post 

One secretary to another “Oh, I just adore my job. It’s the 
work I hate *’ --1 leld Enterprises 

Wife, shopping with friend, telephones husband : “All right, 
dear, we’ll meet you there at six o’clock sharp — and try not to be 
so on time.” — King Features 

Shop assistant to woman in fitting room “On the other hand, 
Madame doesn’t do anything for the dress cither ’’ 

— The Saturday Evening Pott 

Husband to wife ; “I’ll tell you whether I still love you when I 
find out what you’re leading up to.” —The Saturday Evening Post 




Scotland 

When 1 proposed wearing mv 
newly acquired kilt on our trip to 
the island of Arran, my Scottish 
friend, a fellow student at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, objected 
“You’re an American of no Scot- 
tish ancestry and have no right to 
that tartan,” he told me “Further- 
more, Arran is south of where the 
kilt is generally worn I’m leaving 
mine behind, though I have the full 
clan right to wear it ” Nothing 
more was said — but 1 wore my kilt 

My friend’s triumph appeared 
complete when wc found mine was 
the only kilt to be seen As the da\s 
wore on, his smile became more 
forced For at week’s end I had col- 
lected a total of posing for Eng- 
lish and American tourists, who 
considered me the only picturesque 
native on Arran 

— JAMLS WiNGfcitR {Canton, Ohio) 

Switzerland 

Ybung and starry-eyed, I was 
window-shopping in Geneva when 


I realized that a very dapper-look- 
ing man was following me I moved 
on, but he came up beside me, 
dofifed his hat and with a charming 
smile addressed me with a volley of 
French 1 shook my head uncom- 
prehendingh A try at German was 
no more helpful Then English: 
“How to put It delicately, so as not 
to offend^ I very much want to 
know you ” 

With what I considered great 
presence of mind I invoked a myth- 
ical protector “But,” I said, “my 
husband wouldn’t like that a bit.” 

“Ah-h, )ou have the husband?” 
Then, with a shrug and a lift of the 
shoulders, '"Mats, madame — that is 
a condition, not an excuse*” 

— L R P {Montclair New Jersey) 

China 

Before the last war I visited 
Shanghai with a compatriot who 
assured me that he spoke Chinese 
fluently But when we went to a 
restaurant we discovered that my 
friend’s Northern Chinese dialect 


95 



was not undeiibod— so we had to 
take the food they gave us. It was de- 
licious, however — especially a slew, 
of which I held a second helping. 

“Tastes like duck,*’ I remarked 
to my friend “More like chicken,” 
he replied. “But let’s find out.” 

Using universal sign language, he 
beckoned to the waiter, pointed at 
his plate, flapped his arms and 
cried, “Cocka-doodle-do? Cocka- 
doodle-doo^” 

The waiter understood at once, 
shook his head — and began to bark* 

1’ CAStiLi (Pdm) 

Holland 

The tiny ferry which carries 
office- workers over a wide canal to 
Amsterdam was crowded, and a line 
of some 25 cars was waiting Since 
I knew the Dutch lawver who was 
driving us to the city was anxious 
to keep an appointment, I prepared 
for a rather tense wait Instead, he 
drove down the left-hand lane and 
spoke to the gateman, who put our 
car on to the next ferry 

“You must have quite a pull 


with that gateman,*^ I commeirt 

“No, I don’t even know him.” 

“Well, why don’t all the other 
drivers try to get to the head of the 
line, too^” I asked, thinking of my 
own land of opportunists. 

My friend looked puzzled, then 
said slowly, in the tone of one point- 
ing out the obvious, “But why 
should they'^ They aren’t in a 

hurry ’ ““M a G (Oil City, Pennsylvania) 

Formosa 

A friend of mine in Hsinchu. 
bothered twice within a week by a 
burglar, decided to settle him once 
and for all The next time he heard 
footsteps in the garden at night, he 
sneaked to the window and said 
“Sir, I know life must be tough^for 
you But I’m not a rich man How- 
ever, I hate to disappoint you To 
showmv hospitalitv for your calling 
on me, I’ve some vlothing you may 
have.” 

He threw out a bundle he had 
prepared He has never been both 
ered since 

—Chang Ta-jen (Taipei, I ornwsa) 


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WAe^mll uf to the fnghtful harm being done by crime comics? 

V. 7r \ t .y mwai aa. iAi jflhoiki*.. 


; to.® Eoo^ 

1^4 W ... 




Blueprints for 
Delinquency 




Condensed from 


Frederic Wenham, M D 


** Seduction of the Innocent*' Psychiatrist and director of the Laforgue Chnu 

l^eio \ ork 


O NE July day in 1950, during a this statement he committed Willie 
baseball game at New York’s to the state reformatory for an in 
Polo Grounds, a middle-aged spec- determinate stay 
tator suddenly slumped over, blood Newspapers blamed the bo\ ’s 
pouring from his head. He was aunt, reproached her for being ‘ ir 
earned from the stands and died responsible in training the young 
soon afterwards, the victim of a stcr ” But was she? Invcstiganon 
•45-calibrc bullet, apparently fired at revealed that Wilhc had been j 
random from one of the neighbour- rabid comic-book reader. His auni 
ing tenements. had become alarmed and forbidden 

Police searched all the nearby him to bring such books into the 
buildings and finally arrested a 14- house; but the flood continuici 
year-old boy named Willie, dc- Moreover, workers at a public child 
scribed by the newspapers as “gun- guidance clinic had assured the jnnt 
happy.” In the apartment where jhat she could let Willie read all he 
WiUie lived with his aunt the police wanted. 

found two '22 rifles and a high- Some of Willie’s books arc before 
powered -22 target pistol; the boy me as I write. Smudgily printed and 
also confessed to owning and firing well thumbed, they arc unabashed 
a *45 pistol. In court the judge chronicles of violence and sex. Here 
slat^: “We cannot find you guilty, is a lecherous-looking bandit over- 
bui 1 beheve you to be guilt)'.” With powering an attractive, scantily cUd 

of the Innocent/* copyright 1954 1 hy Rtnehart 4t Co,, Setu York 



come BOOKS --^BOIEPRINTS FOR DELINQUENCY 


girl; here a detailed and graphic 
sequence of pictures illustrating a 
garrotting. In addition to crime, 
gun-play and murder galore, bright- 
coloured full-page advertisements 
of guns announce, “Get a sweet- 

shootin’ and get in on the 

funt” 

Years of working with malad- 
justed children have convinced me 
that the unwholesome stimulation 
of such “comic books” contributes 
markedly to delinquency Most 
people, including many child psy- 
chologists, know little or nothing 
about these publications Comic 
books, they assume, are Disney-type 
animal cartoons or reprints of comic 
strips from newspapers — “like 
‘Bbndic,* you know.” 

But this IS a great error. Comic 
books are seldom reprints of comic 
strips, which are subject to the cen- 
sorship of newspaper editors There 
is no agency with authority to cen- 
sor or reject comic books. 

In 1948, when I estimated that 
some 60 million comic books were 
published in the United States each 
month, people were incredulous. 
Today’s circulation figure is in the 
neighbourhood of 90 million. One 
American crime comic book — a veri- 
table primer for juvenile delin- 
quency — claims SIX million readers. 

In 1946 crime comics represented 
only about one-tenth of all comic 
books. By 1949 crime comics had 
increased to one-half the total out- 
put, and by 1953 formed the vast 
majority. The so-called “good” 


comics — sports, animal stone 
ney comics — today make up no 
more than one-fifth of the whole. 

Comic-book covers often carry 
statements that the stones conform 
to some special code, they feature 
endorsements by “educators” and 
passages of ethical make-believe. A 
typical cover depicts a corpse with 
blood on Its mouth, with the killer 
standing beside it; beneath, in a 
small circle, is the legend, “Crime 
does not pay”, and, m still smaller 
type, the words, “Dedicated to the 
eradication of crime ” Children 
know such captions a»‘e only “eye- 
wash” intended for parents and 
teachers As for the endorsements, 
one boy told me, “The more they 
need, the more they have ” 

One comic book bears the legend, 
“We hope that within these pages 
the youth of America will learn to 
know crime for what it really is : a 
dead-end road of fools and tears ” 
Inside, a criminal terrorizes a farm 
family, makes advances to the farm- 
er’s wife, beats the farmer, kidnaps 
their little boy as a hostage. “I’ll 
knock yer teeth out*” he snarls as 
he beats the child In the end the 
criminal evades the law by shooting 
himself, like a hero The story has 
97 pictures of the criminal winning, 
and one for his violent end — ^a 
ratio of 97 parts of “crime” to one 
of “does not pay.” 

The variety of violence and bru- 
tality depicted in detail is enormous. 
Hanging and knifing are common. 
The most characteristic act is slap- 



200 COMIC BOOKS — BLUEPRINTS FOR DELINQUENCY 


ping a girl in the face. Another re- 
curring motif IS injury to the eye 
— a form of torture, shown in un- 
counted instances, which has no 
counterpart in any other literature 
of the world. One comic shows a 
man with brass knuckle-dusters hit- 
ting another man (held fast by a 
third) in the eyes Dialogue “Now 
his other glimmer, Pete * Only sort 
of twist the knuckles this time*” 
In a Western comic book the 
“Gouger” threatens the hero’s eye 
with his long, pointed thumbnail — 
called the “killer’s manicure ” 
Jungle, horroi and interplanetary 
comics specialize in torture, blood- 
shed and lust in an exotic setting 
White men in jungle books arc 
blond, Nordic he-men, athletic and 
shapely, while the coloured natives 
are characterized as sub-human 
The superman type of comic book 
also needs an endless stream of 
criminal, “foreign-looking” people, 
to justify the constant use of force 
and superforcc These are always 
Negroes, Jews, Slavs or Orientals, 
characterized by irregular features, 
swarthy skins, deformities While 
the United States spends millions of 
dollars to persuade the world that 
race hatred is not an integral part 
of American life, millions of U.S. 
comic books exported all over the 
world show an endless stream of 
prejudice-producing images 
The so-called “classics” comic 
books are designed for children who 
“will not read anything else.” Re- 
“ portcdly they arc used in 25,000 


schools. If this IS true, I have never 
heard a more serious indictment of 
American education These books 
do not reveal to children the world 
of good literature; they conceal it. 

For instance, a backward 14 year- 
old boy who had read the “classics” 
version of Dr Jel^ll and Mr Hyde 
reported as follows “It is called 
‘The Mad Doctor ’ He makes medi- 
cine He drinks it and turns into a 
beast Hr kills a little girl Then 
he changes into a man He keeps 
changing Finallv he gets shot I 
like where he comes to the little girl 
and hits her with a cane ” 

Macbeth (“streamlined for action, 
adapted for easy and enjoyable 
reading”) offers in its first balloon 
the words spoken by a young woman 
(Lady Macbeth) “Smear the sleep- 
ing servants with blood*” Shake- 
speare and the child are corrupted 
at the same time 

I have yet to see a child who was 
led to read classics in the original 
by reading them in comic-book ver- 
sions One librarian reports, “Cir- 
culation of juvenile books has de- 
creased greatly since comic books 
have become so popular ” 

Many adults think that the crimes 
described in comic books are so far 
removed from ordinary experience 
that, for children, they are merely 
fantasy But pouring sordid stones 
into the minds of children is not the 
same as pouring water over a duck’s 
back. Juvenile delinquency in Amer- 
ica has increased about 20 per cent 
since 1947, the period correspond- 




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t02 

ing to the great rise in corrric-book 
circulation. Consider these cases : 

1. Three boys, six to eight years 
old, took a boy of seven, hanged 
him naked from a tree, his hands 
tied behind him, then burned him 
with matches. Investigation officers 
found that the boys were re-enact- 
ing a comic-book plot 

2. A boy of II killed a woman in 
a holdup. When arrested, he was 
found surrounded by comic books 

3. A boy of 13 committed a “lust 
murder” of a girl of six Arrested 
and gaoled, he asked only for comic 
books. 

4. A boy who had participated 
when a group attacked and seri- 
ously stabbed another boy was 
found with a knife on the sheath of 
which was inked 'kill for the 

LOVE OF KILLING 

I could continue this list almost 
indefinitely As Judge Samuel 
Lcibowitz points out, “the defend- 
ants in crimes of violence today are 
often mere children — at an age 
when m former years they would 
have come into contact with the law 
only for swiping apples or upsetting 
push-carts.” 

If one were to set out to show 
children how to steal, he, assault 
and break into houses, no better 
blueprints than the comic books 
could be devised. A boy who bur- 
gled shops explained: “In ‘Crime 
Docs Not Pay’ there was this one 


case, It showed how you get in 
through the back door of a factory. 

I didn’t copy that. I thought the side 
door was the best way.” 

Another boy said, “I saw a book 
where a man has a hanger in his 
coat with hooks on. He shoves things 
inside his coat and they disappear. 
The kids see that these men get 
away with it, they say, ‘Let’s try 
it ’ ” 

In a comic book which haS the 
“Seal of Approval of Comics Maga- 
zine Publishers,” )ou learn that 
after a robbery you can escape more 
easily if you shoot out the light. The 
question of right and wrong is never 
raised — only the question of win- 
ning And the forces of law win 
usually only after the criminal has 
made an obvious mistake. Discuss- 
ing punishment, a child will oflen 
tell you that the criminal deserved 
his fate “He got caught, didn’t 
he?” 

Lund advertisements, interspersed 
among the comics, are veritable in- 
vitations to delinquency Pictures 
of air pistols, a “genuine 22 rifle” 
accompany sequences showing how 
the guns may be used to threaten 
people. An ad for a spring-blade 
knife shows how to hold it, “with 
your thumb on the button.” An- 
other, for a telescope, points out 
that you can look into “neighbours’ 
homes,” and the illustration shows 
a half-naked girl. Still others offer 
secret creams for girls with small 
busts, and patent medicines to de- 
velop “virility.” 




Hif 

§X>~ 




than words. Whether her gesture r. 
expresses affection, anger, joy or ^ 

confusion, it has an inexplicable 
charm. And she knows how to 
heighten its effect' the Alovado 
\ jewel watch glistening on her wrisf^^^^U ^ 

\ emphasiv^es her movements and^^^^\ 
intensifies their kindliness, sponta- 
neity and warmth 
In the Movado workshops in Pans 




:‘,¥ 



f-ACTORIES AT LA CHAUX-DE-FONOS, THE SWISS WATCHMAKIN6 METROPOLIS 

103 



Comic books arc available almost 
everywhere. They are in kinder- 
gartens, in playgrounds and schools, 
in children’s wards in hospitals. A 
survey made of 450 pupils m prim- 
ary schools revealed that the average 
child read 14 comic books a week 
Two children claimed that they 
read 100 a week 

Against the child is concentrated 
the economic power of a large and 
completely unregulated industry 
Comic-book publishers specialize in 
anonymity —you can rarely be sure 
who publishes what. Actuall) a few 
firms put out most of the comic 
books, but they do so under various 
names. Titles, too, are subject to 
frequent change if a book is criti- 
cized the publishers mav stop the 
senes and start the same thing again 
with another title. 

Defenders of comic books, among 
them some child-guidance experts, 
minimize their harmful ness, main- 
taming that crime comics serve as 
a “release for children’s aggressive 
tendencies,’’ that they arc the “folk- 
lore of today,” that delinquent chil- 
dren are usually “predisposed” to 
delinquency or “unstable” in the 
first place 

Psychiatry has never reached a 
lower point morally than this Crime 
comics help children to get rid of 
their inhibitions, not their aggres- 
sions. They make violence, sadism 
and obscenity seem natural. Folk- 
lore, which presents legend and fact 

^ry and song, has nothing to do 
the knifc-wielding, eye-goug- 


ing, marijuana-smoking heroes of 
the crime comics. 

Every move for legal action to 
regulate comic-book publication in 
America is met by the publishers 
with outraged cries of “Censor- 
ship*’' “Protect the freedom of the 
press*” The question of what is in 
the comic books seldom comes up 
At least three separate attempts to 
enact a simple sanitary law to pro- 
tect children under 15 h^ive been 
defeated Comic-book publishers see 
such legislation as a threat to all 
“mass media” — radio, television, 
films, newspapers Such media have 
done themselves considerable harm 
bv making common cause with 
crime comics. Why should papers 
that stand for the principle of pub- 
lishing what is “fit to print” make 
themselves the champions of those 
who publish what is unfit to print ^ 

Alternatives to censorship have 
been tried Self- regulation — to the 
extent that it was really attempted 
— has completely failed Attempts 
at comic-biX)k evaluation under 
taken by p.ircnt-teacher organiza 
tions and similar groups have bog- 
ged down in the attempt to wade 
through the flood of books. 

The crime comics’ distillation of 
viciousness is unparalleled in the 
history of children’s literature of 
any time or any nation. I believe 
that aroused parents will eventually 
realize that comic books arc not a 
necessary evil I am convinced the 
democratic process will assert itself 
and crime comic books will go. 




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105 




LfdJimb ui iyiUML 


Joe Callancm 

.On MANY a Caribbean island the 
music of the oil drum has nearly 
drowned out the sound of traditional 
instruments Trimmed with a hack- 
saw, tuned with a sledge hammer, the 
oil drum has a fragile, muted, bell-like 
tone. Sometimes it is compared to the 
tone of a xylophone or a Hawaiian 
guitar, but most people feci the haunt- 
ing sound IS like no other music 
In the “steel peitussion bands*' as 
they are called, oil drums play every 
musical role— from pianos to violins 
and trumpets Some of the drums arc 
shallow and hang by straps from the 
musicians’ shoulders CJthers stand on 
the ground, waist-high Bands may 
have as many as 30 pieces, and the 
drums have been rehned to the point 
where they can be as true to a polon- 
aise by Chopin as to a calypso 
It all started in Trinidad in the John 
John Hill district ot Fort ot Spam 
Some time after World War 11 , the 
story goes, a man was drumming on a 
biscuit tin when it was struck by a 
stone Attempting to smooth it out, he 
tapped It with a hammer, found its 
tone had become mellower He tapped 
It in another place A different noto. 
The smashed tin had five notes and he 
could play “Mai y Had a Little Lamb “ 
When he paraded through the streets 
beating his tin excrynu in the neigh 
bourhood promptly went foraging in 
the scrap-heaps for tins It WdS soon 


tn The Lamp 

discovered that oil drums, due to the 
quality of the steel, had a superior tone 
Today the “pans” are always made 
from oil drums They fall into three 
basic categories the Ping Pongs, 
which carry the melody; the Tune 
Booms, which make up the harmony 
section, and the Bass Booms, which 
are rhythm instruments 
If a steel bandsman wants a new 
Ping Pong, he saws off his oil drum 
about foui inches from the bottom, 
which IS to be the face of the drum 
He heats the pan over a fire, then 
pounds the face until it is smoothly 
conca\e With white paint, he marks 
off loops on the face — each loop is 
a separate note Then with a hammer 
and an awl he cuts a shallow groo\e 
along the painted lines, separati^ng 
each note so that there will be no 
blending Then he taps the underside 
of the drum, raising each note until 
he gets the tone and pitch he wants 
Today there arc some 200 steel bands 
in Trinidad alone The island’s Tapso 
All-Star Steel Band travelled to Eng 
land for the Festual of Britain Others 
ha\e been invited to give concerts and 
television performances in the United 
States One band almost missed a New 
York television engagement because 
the customs officer wouid not allow 
their pans to enter the country as 
musical instruments He finally listed 
them as “junk,” let them pass 


J. STRAMui) English actor went into a sordid eating house in New 
York for a cheap meal, and was horrified to recognize the waitei as a 
colleague who had played with him in London 
“Great Scott he gasped “You, a waiter in this place?” 

“Yes, but I don’t eat here,” replied the other with dignity —Ttt-Btts 











►K.l 


'm 


iMI 


I; 




4 .^ 






A condensation from the boo\ 

Robert C Ruark 

ittcENFLY Robert Ruark closed his New York apartment, bought 
some big-game rifles and fulfilled a long-chcrishcd ambition by taking 
himself and his wife on a two-month African safari It meant a partial 
abandonment of his syndicated newspaper column, and it cost a lot of 
nioncy, but Ruark found the expedition well wortli it. “Never have I 
seen days of which I was so stingy with the hours,” he says. “We werct 
in an Old Testament paradise, a place that God was happy to make, 
with the original creatures in it and not even man behaving very 
badly.” Horn of the Hunter^ in Ruark’s characteristically vivid 
nianrifci;^ gives a graphic close-up of that colourful adventure. 

**Horn (hf tiieffitnter/* copyright I95S by Robert C Ruark, is to he published by 
Hutchinson, London, tn August, 1954 



T he moon had climbed steeply 
into the velvet blue of the 
African night, and it was cold — not 
i quite frosty, but chilly-dew cold — 
and the fire was warm and wondci- 
ful. Somewhere up the creek ba- 
boons and leopards were cursing 
each other in guttural grunts A 
group of hyenas started to giggle 
Far off I heard the roar of a lion — a 
cross between a cough and the fiist 
mutter of a summer thunderstorm 
I began to think about just how far 
I was from New \ork and news- 
paper syndicates and telephones and 
subw'avs and elexators 
I sat up with a start I am a hunter, 
I said to myself I must be a hunter, 
or I wouldn’t be here, at the end of 
nowhere, with a city-slicker wife 
and 15 strange black boys and a 
youngster with no beard, practi- 
cally, who sa\s he is a professional 
big-game hunter 
The hunter’s born had sounded 
«arly for me, I thought. I hunted 
qtlail in North Carolina from the 
^time I was eight For a long time I 
'"bad a small boy’s dream of writing 


a story about my dogs and my quail 
and seeing it in print Later I fell 
under the spell of Edgar Rice Bur- 
roughs and Tarzan I devoured the 
African adventures of the Martin 
Johnsons It seemed 1 would bust if 
I didn't get to see and write about 
the jungles and lions some da\ 
Dreams rarely work out accord 
mg to the script But here I Wc*s on 
my own safari in Tanganyika As 
the fire began to «hake into glowing 
coals I reflected that if it were pos- 
sible for a man to be happy in this 
day and age I was a happy man 

and I had been met at 
the Nairobi airport b\ Donald Ker, 
a cheery squirrel of a nan and one- 
half of Ker Downey Safaris, Ltd , 
which had arranged our expedition 
He said something like .“I say, I’m 
dreadfully sorry that vour man 
Selby — your hunter, you know— 
isn’t here to greet you, but a rogue 
rhino’s been raising vast amounts 
of trouble with the natives outside 
the town, and we’ve sent old Harry 
off to reprove it.” 


HORN OP THE HUNTER 


“Old Harry,*’ when he got back 
from dealing with the rhino, turned 
out to be an extraordinarily hand- 
some young man of 26, with the 
kind of curly black hair and dark 
eyes that bring out the mother in 
women He also has wrists as thick 
as ordinary men’s ankles, and a 
hard mouth that turns down at the 
corners In the bush the natives call 
him ''m'zee” “old man ” It means 
respected, ancient sir, it means wis- 
dom and couiagc and experience 
He is possibly the best of the prac- 
tising professional hunters in Brit- 
ish East Africa, and he is booked up 
for safaris five years ahead 

I had heard a lot about Harrv 
Selbv Born and raised in Kenva 
C>olonv, he had shot his first ele- 
phant b(‘fore he was 15 and he be- 
came a pu) at the age of 20 I had 
heard about the buflalo a client of 
his had shot and thought dead It 
got up and charged towards them 
Harr\ hit it over one e\c and the 
client hit it under the other, and it 
still kept coming So, at four feet, 
Harrv shot it thioilgh the pupil I 
presume he wasn’t aiming else- 
where 

We had brought cameras and an 
arsenal of fane\ rifles with us (I 
did not know what I could do with 
the guns; although I was handy 
with a shotgun, I had never fired 
any sort of rifle at anything except 
a target ) Harry provided the ne- 
cessities, including a lorry to carry 
the camping equipment and the 15 
black boys, and a kind of glori- 


fied jeep called a Land Rdv<^ 
In relatively few parts of AfridjJ 
are you allowed to shoot anythin^i 
Achieving those areas is difficult 
and dusty With Harry Selby at zh 6 
helm we took off for a special chuniK 
of Tanganyika Tciritory he had in 
mind There were few roads — only 
tracks through grass and winding 
over and round mountains 
The second day out of Nairobi 
we were ciossing the plain called 
the Serengeti (a reserve area) when 
Harrv exclaimed, “Oh, my auntf 
Look yonder What a lovely lion.** 

I do not believe there are many 
more impressive sights than a city 
man’s first glimpse of a live, maned 
lion loose on a plain in strange 
country, far from home This old 
boy had a luxuriant mane and tufts 
on his elbows He stopped cold and 
turned to inspect us with a cynical 
vellow eve Harry swung the car 
to within a tew feet of him and 
halted it 

They all tell you that so long as 
voii stav in a car \ou arc completely 
s.ife dhis is of small comfort on 
vour first live lion You keep won- 
dering it mavhe vou haven’t met an 
individualist who dislikes motor- 
cars and who will suddenly nestle 
in your lap (I met a lady lion lata 
who did not like Land Rovers, noi 
the people in them She charged t 
three times, and the last time hci 
]aw»^ snapped a touch closer to mj 
trousers than 1 like to remember,' 
Six feet away, with no bars ir 
front of him, a lion is bigger that 



lion you remembered from the 
5500 . His teeth are longer. He is 
scrubbier, perhaps, but loses nothing 
in ferocity. 

The lion grunted and scowled, 
then yawned at Jinny, who was 
taking pictures. She did not yawn 
back. She was not bored 

“He’s just off a kill,” Harry said. 
“Look at his belly. Full of zebra. 
No trouble fiorn this type Let’s 
proceed, we’ll sec another dozen or 
so before dusk Shoo^” He slapped 
the door of the Land Rover “Scat* 
Begone * ” 

The lion opened his mouth and 
roared. It wasn’t a very serious roar, 
but it seemed rather loud to me 
Harry started the car and the lion 
humped away, his shoulder blades 
moving angularly under the loose 
hide. 

“Lovely beasts, lions, you know,” 
Harry said “Not the king of the 
jungle, though Never makes the 
effort. Elephant — he’s the king. 
Buffalo’s the prince, and leopard’s 
the knave 

“The lion is a gentleman — a lazy 
old gentleman. Makes Mamma do 
all the work He stands upwind and 
lets his scent drift down to some 
poor zebras and roars once in a 
while to amuse himself The old 
lady, betimes, has sneaked lound 
downwind from the zebras, who 
gradually work towards her She 
nt^es two jumps and lands on a 
asebra’s back She hooks her hind 
.feet into his stern and takes a mouth 
hold' OJX his neck. Then she reaches 


round with a forepaw and grabs 
him by the nose, and crack! Din- 
ner* The old boy saunters up and 
they dine Then they sleep Later 
Mother bestirs herself and goes to 
market once again Very sensible 
arrangement, what^” 

I will never, possiblv, foiget that 
first day on the Sercngcti We saw 
14 lions As wc got mt(^ the bush we 
began to sec giialTe and ostrich, and 
the antelopes thickened into herds 
of several hundicd These were the 
first stirrings of the semi-annual 
game migration, and the flocks of 
wildebeest, shaggv and high-hump- 
ed like American bison, weic be 
ginning to move, along with their 
friends and companions the zebras 
At one point wc paused tor a few 
unforgettable moments while some 
5,000 zebra boomed p.ist our bow, 
their h(X)fs thunderous even on the 
grassy plain, the dust boiling behind 
them like the wake of an armoured 
column in a desert 

On a high knoll under a patch of 
mangy acacias wc stopped for lunch 
The sun filtered through the tree- 
tops and wc sweated and the insect 
bites Itched and our eyes were red 
and I was happy Two months 
ahead of me and nothing to do ex- 
cept look at the game and maybe 
shoot a little of it 
“When we get off this reserv^e 
we’ll have to shoot a big piece of 
meat pretty quick,” Harry said 
“The boys have been lying around 
town for a month and they’re fair 
starved for red meat. They eat up 



The planes that don’t 
try to redesign people 


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at a single point, vuu 
This IS the result ol the (oncct aero- 
dynamic design of Douglas planes 
the srraifrht-line shape the single tail 
This efficient shape means greater 
speed and range, more capacitv lor 
the extras that spell real luxury in the 
aiF radiant heating, air condition- 


ing, soundproof walls and windows. It 
gives a roomier mltrior, generous seat 
space, plenty of head room, more view 
from the big square windows 
Greater speed, comfort, dependa- 
bility and the elliciency that keeps fares 
low, IS why l^OLiglas, since 1935, has 
been the major factor in the world- 
wide growth of air travel 


Twice as many people fly Douglas 
as all other airplanes combined 


to 12 pounds of It a day, you know. 

Each/' 

It seemed incredible that anyone 
should consume that amount of 
food. But later I discovered that, 
hunting all day under the African 
sun, you burn up so much energy 
that there just isn’t enough meat to 
restoke the furnace. 

WAS midnight of the thud day 
when we reached the site of our 
first “permanent” camp We were 
tired and our backs ached, our 
knees were cramped, our eyes were 
full of dust 

“Home — Campi Abahati,” Harry 
announced cheerfully “It means 
Happy Camp, Lucky Camp ” 

We couldn’t make much out of it 
at that hour except that from the 
sounds an assortment of hjenas, ba- 
boons and leopards seemed to be 
awaiting us We crawled under our 
mosquito nets 

Somehow it quickK becomes log- 
ical to fall asleep amid unceasing 
night noises There is a dove that 
says “Oooh Oooh* Ooohfi^'' The 
bush-babies cry and the colobus 
monkeys snort like lions A lion 
mutters with an asthmatic catch in 
his throat. The insects are tumultu- 
ous. In time, the jungle noise makes 
itself into a pattern which is sooth- 
ing except when the hyenas start to 
giggle in that maniac’s mirthless 
fiiysteria which nobody has ever put 
down on paper. 

' I woke up in an Old Testament 
'paradise, a place that God was 


happy to make, with the original 
creatures in it and not even man 
behaving very badly. The Happy 
Camp, the Lucky Camp was on a 
grassy knoll overlooking the Grum- 
metti River, cuddled in the crook 
of a low mountain’s arm Behind 
was a brilliant yellow plain dotted 
with blue-and-white primrosy sorts 
of flowers 

We unlimbcred the tents from 
the lorry and pitched them beneath 
big thorn acacias We had a big 
double-fly job for the Memsaab aiW 
the Bwana — that was Virginia and 
me Then there were Selby’s tent, 
an open-faced dining tent and a 
tiny cook tent Some of the boys 
had half-tents which, paired, make 
a shelter large enough for two It 
took 50 minutes to set up the whole 
business 

That morning we toured the 
plain behind our camp Life was 
everywhere — herds of wildebeest, 
impala, buffalo 

“You say you’ve never fired 1 
rifle except at a target,” said Harry 
“We’d better break \ou in eas) 
Suppose we let you shoot some 
leopard bait ” 

A herd of Grant’s gazelle looked 
at us and ambled slowly away “See 
that one over there said Harry 
“He’s an old ram, about ready for 
the hyenas. He’d be tougher than 
whitleather and his liver is full of 
worms, but the leopards won't care 
Get out and wallop him.” 

Kidogo, the gunbearer, handed 
me the little Remington *30-06. 



"tf&mtt oF‘ TffB mfNfsk 


f9S4 ^ f 



I slid out of the mo\ing car and 
crawled to a ten-foot anthill The 
Land Rover went away One docs 
not shoot from cars in Africa, nor 
until the vehicle is a good 500 yards 
away The Game Department dc- 
pjorcs car shooters, and also puts 
them in gaol 

In my Naw da)s I shot at sub- 
marines and I shot at aeroplanes 
and 1 did not shake Now I shook, 
and my eyes blurred I aimed at the 
gazelle’s shoulder The bullet hit 
him in the left hind ankle Great 
beginning, bo\, I said 1 shot rive 
more times, carefully The last time 
the gazelle jumped into the bullet 
and It broke his neck 
“Everybody misses at first,” 
Harry said, when the car had picked 
me up. “The light, you know ” 
“The light hasn’t got anything to 
do with my shakes,” I said. 

All I could think of during lunch 
was that the guy who couldn’t hit a 
gazelle was supposed to shoot a lion. 

hen we set out again that 
afternoon old Kibinti said some- 


thing rapidl) in Swahili Kibiriti 
was an eldeily black who, Harry 
said, was wired for lion “He can' 
find lions when other lions can’t 
find lions ” 

The old bo) had come down with 
one of his hunches He said that the 
way the moon was and what with 
the recent rains and the state of the 
grass and all, there ought to be a 
lion about three miles away under 
a tree hard by a rock) hill “We’d 
better go and take a look,” said 
Harry 

We travelled the three miles. 
There was a rocky hill There was 
a clump of thorn, and under it, 
catching a nap in the afternoon sun, 
was a lion ''Simha'' Kibiriti said, 
as a man might remark that if you 
go east far enough along 54th Street 
in New York City you will find the 
East River 

“I’m damned it I understand it,” 
Harry said reverently. “To itiy, 
certain knowledge, Kibiriti has not I 
been here for a year. But here you. 
have a lion, and on your first shoot^' 
ing day in Africa. This simba is a* 




m ‘ mm op rm ffuNtm 


little past prime, but hc*s the biggest 
blighter I’ve ever seen I think 
you’d better collect him.” 

I looked at Kibiriti’s broad black 
face and saw the sun shining 
through the holes in his pierced 
lobes and decided I disliked him 
intensely “Why doesn’t this idiot 
stay home with his wives'^’' I said 
bitterly. “I don't even know if I 
tifant to shoot a lion.” 

“Everybody wants to shoot a 
lion,” Harry said “That’s why sa- 
faris cost so much 

“We will collect him like this,” 
he went on blithelv “Kidogo will 
drive. When I nudge \ou, fall out 
of the car and lie still. Then we will 
crawl as close to this stmha as we 
can and, when I tell vou, you shoot 
him. I’d not wound him if I were 
you, old bov, or we will all ha\e c\ 
very nasty time When \ou\e shot 
him once, shoot him again, and 
then shoot him once more for insur- 
ance. Very sound rule All set^” 

Good-bye, Mother, I said to my- 
self. Et up by a lion in the bloom 
of youth 

We approached the lion in a 
curiously circuitous fashion Kidogo 
seemed always to be driving away 
from him but actually we were 
growing closer. Harry jabbed me m 
3ie ribs and we both fell out of the 
Land Rover. To back me up, Harry 
had a rusty-looking rifle that he had 
told me could not hit anything but 
lims. 

I started crawling on my belly in 
(he coarse yellow grass, and the lion 


was looking enormous now, staring 
in that stuffed-shirt profile way they 
do, like bankers contemplating the 
future. He flexed the muscles of his 
forelegs, hooking his claws, and 
flicked his back hide to express an- 
noyance at the camel flies that 
buzzed round him (We were close 
enough now to count the flies on 
him ) 

Harry pressed me down behind 
a hummock as the lion turned hi^ 
head and looked right at us. He 
ti/as a little scruffy on top, but he 
had a fine dark mane His feet were 
as big as suitcases His head was as 
big as a bale of hav 
“Wallop him,” Selby whispered 
I got up on one knee and went 
for just behind his car Miracu- 
lously I did not shake The bullet hit 
like a wet boxing glove on a sand- 
bag The lion fl(>ppcd over, kuked 
once, roared once and stretched out 
“That’s the deadest lion I ever 
saw,” said Harrs, “but I should 
bust him again it I were you These 
dead animals are the ones that get 
up and kill vou ” 

1 busted him again. 

“Lord, he's huge,” Harry said 
“Now vou’rc Bwana Simba. And 
here comes the worshipping throng 
They want your autograph. Kill 
a hon, make friends, influence na- 
tives.” 

The black boys knew the script 
well They came up to give me the 
special handshake, grasping the 
thumb, roaring asthmatically and 
telling me that I was the one-shot 




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^ Bwana, the mighty simba slayer, 
. the protector of the poor. I agreed 
» feadily, then went over behind a 
^ jbush and was sick for just a 
moment. Something Td eaten, I 
guess. 

We took a good look at my lion. 
He looked awfully rumpled A dead 
lion has no dignity. All the majesty 
leaks out of him with the blood. He 
was an old boy — about ten years 
old, Harry thought We walked off 
his length — ten foot six. That is a 
lot of lion. 

I talked a great deal on the drive 
back to camp, and accepted con- 

g ^atulations freely I was suddenly 
ee of a great many inhibitions 
Every man has to brace a lion at 
least once in his life, and whether 
the lion 1$ a woman or a boss or the 
prospect of death bv disease makes 
no difference I had met mine and 
killed him fairly and I felt good 
When we reached camp the hero's 
bnde was taking a nap “Get up," 
I commanded. “Come see what 
Father done with his gun And 
bring your camera " 

Virginia came We posed smiba 
for the camera, his chin arrogantly 
on a rock. The blacks told me again 
that I was one hell of a Lwana 
Then the lion’s eyes opened. Then 
his cars twitched Then he uttered 
a grunt. Then I found myself alone 
lyijh a lion and Mr. Selby The 
admiiiers had achieved trees 
I iNIS^i^Qot ashamed to say that I 
simba once more in the 
fthc neck. 



Like Harry says, it’s the dead 
ones get up and kill you. 

DAYS began to fall into 
something of a pattern At five in 
the morning, just as the birds were 
beginning to speak, one of the two 
“personal" boys would bring tea 
to the tent and shake me awake 
They aroused the Memsaab more 
pointedly — they let the air fizz out 
of her mattress and unhooked her 
mosquito netting Hot water had 
been put in the basin on the wash 
table out front Juma, the head bov, 
would have the breakfast tabic set, 
wnth Its dean chequered cloth and 
Its green plastic dishes 

After polite good mornings and 
a wordless breakfast, Harry would 
tell the boys to bring up the Land 
Rover Then wc would hunt— - 
Harry driving, the car boy and two 
gunbearers in back Nearly any 
where an animal could go the car 
could go In a ciav wc would put 
about 150 miles on the speedometer 

You do not remember davs out 
in the bush by date or week or 
weather You recall the day of the 
buffalo or the day of the lion or the 
dd> the lorry busted her axle The 
day of the waterbuck was quite J 
day. It got to be more of a day as it , 
went along. 

“Let’s check down by the river,’ 
Harry had said. “I seem to remem- 
ber an old watcrbuck from the last 
trip who’s got more horns than he 
needs — they must be making his 
head ache.” 



We drove through some reeds, 
then up a small grassy hill. A herd 
of perhaps a dozen waterbuck loped 
leisurely from the rushes “There's 
the gentleman I had in mind," 
Harry said. We climbed out of the 
Land Rover and started to sulk in 
that half crouch which looks so 
easy but soon reminds you forcibly 
of age and girth 

Waterbuck are awful to eat, since 
they arc tough and carry an insect 
repellent in their hides — a greas\, 
smelly ointment that comes off on 
vour hands But there is no more 
riiggedK handsome animal in Af- 
rica The bull IS not so rangy as an 
elk, but he has a thick, tufted elk's 
neck, a noble face, a compact, 
hetiviK furred bodv He weighs 
about 700 pounds, and is beauti- 
fully marked in black and white 
and grcMsh-fawn His horns are 
slim parentheses that are heavily 
gnarled at the base and finish ofi in 
four inches of clean ivory point 

Mv buck was walking steadily 
tow.irds me now, his head thrown 
back I braced my gun in the crotch 
'^'f a small, scrubby tree It was 


shaking. I sighted on his chest, 
the unseen force which fires guns^'; 
operated. There was a thunk The " 
waterbuck went straight up in the'* 
air, turned at the top of his leap— ^ 
a good SIX feet off the ground — and 
then disappeared 

‘I got himf" I shouted to Selby. 
“If this boy ain’t dead I am going 
back to Nan obi ’’ 

From where the animal had been 
standing we followed bright slashes 
of blood for 50 yards or so, and 
found him dead, shot squarely 
through the heart Harry took one 
look at his horns and turned to me. 

“I don’c suppose you know what 
you’ye got here, old boy,” he said. 
“But unless 1 am mad you have just 
walloped the best waterbuck any- 
body cycr brought out of Tangan- 
yika ” 

We hefted the buck into the back 
of the car and diove slo^vly across 
the blue-and'white-flowered plain 
toyvards camp, full of self-congratu- 
lation and the yearning for a cele- 
biation drink 

Suddenly Kidogo seized me by 
the shoulder and said, 



THE miiTER 


^ There is no other word in 
Swahih that carries the electrifying 
impact of this word. Away off, 
making a gentle ripple in the sea of 
yellow grass, two rounded ears were 
flattened to a yellow skull as a lion- 
ess stalked a herd of zebra She 
slithered along, belly flat-pressed to 
the ground, just her nose and cars 
showing 

We drove in widening circles, un- 
til we had turned up three more 
lionesses and four unsteady, spotted, 
clumsy cubs Then we saw Papa 
He was very big — buily and hand- 
some, with .1 massive, cherry -red 
mane. 

“Beauty,” Selby said “Much 
better than the one youVe got 
Consider that we have a dead lion 
Let’s go and have a spot of lunch, 
pick up the Memsaab, then come 
back and collect him ” 

It wa^ three o’clock when we 
came back with Virginia, and the 
lions had gone into a pitch of 
scrubby thorn .icacia A couple of 
hundred yards away we dropped 
the carcass of a fresh-killed bull 
topi “Hors d’ocLivres,” Sclbv said 
“We will ask our friends to dinner ” 

We watched through Innoculais 
from a couple of thousand vards 
Finally, after half an hour, the four 
lionesses and the big male came out 
of the bush and commenced to feed 
on the kill 

“Let’s go,” said Harrv 

The car boy drove us fairly close 
to the five lions. Harry and Kidogo 
and I drop^d out of the open door. 


and the car took off. We crawled to 
within 40 yards and crouched be- 
hind a small tussock. 

“End of the line,” Selby whis 
pered 

I set the sights on the back ot the 
lion’s neck and squeezed He turned 
over with a roar and began to flop. 
Three lionesses lit out for the bush 
Ikit Mamma simha, the one that 
owned the cubs, started towards us, 
then halted The hc-lion got up on 
his front feet and began to shake the 
earth with noise 

“Hit him again,” Selbv said 

I had to stand now, and as I stood 
the lioness charged I was not un- 
interested in the charge of a lad\ 
lion, but Papa was bucking around, 
roaring and c.irryingon, and I had 
to get him He held still for a 
second, finallv, and I socked him 
directlv behind the car He flopped 
over 

Mamma was still u>ming towards 
us at 20 feet I switched mv gun to- 
wards her and noticed Selby still 
casunllv on one knee, bis rusty- 
looking old rifle hdd rather care- 
lessly to his cheek At about 12 feet 
she stopped, but her tail was still 
waving She had an ugly face and 
a mighty big mouth Selby got up 
He advanced tow.jrds her, and I 
adv meed with him, feeling rather 
lonely The cat backed up a yard. 
We walked again She retreated 
another yard 

Harry spoke quietly in Swahili to 
Kidogo, who was standing by with 
the spare rifle* “Get into the car. 



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cover the B^ana with your 
He said to me in English: 
KrfOver me. Then get into the car. 
Keep covering me from the car ” 

1^’ iCidogo and I made our way to 
Land Rover, which had been 
"^nvcn up. Then Harry took a step 
backwards The cat lowered her face 
and chest flat against the ground, 

• her tail waving gently, her rump 
in the air Harry continued to move 
backwards slowly, finalK slid into 
the driver’s seat, cased out the 
clutch. Then he hit the side of the 
car a whack with his hand and 
roared. I jumped So did the cat 
‘‘Begone, you surly slut^” Harry 
cried, tramping on the accelerator 
*‘Away with you*” The lioness 
sneered, then walked reluctantlv to 
the edge of the bush. I looked for 
the first time at Virginia 
“Idiots * ” she said bitterly “Lions 
bounding round all over the land- 
scape and you drive another one ofT 
like she was an alley cat Mv fate is 
in the hands of fools ” 

Harry shrugged and spread his 
hands. “Too many lions at once arc 
apt to be unsettling,” he said. “That 
was a very nasty lion Thought for 
a second I’d have to shoot her ” 
“Why didn’t you'^” I said “She 
kept coming until she was practi 
cally sitting in your lap ” 

Harry looked at me in something 
approaching horror “My dear 
iJian,” he said, “she had cubs One 
lioesn’t go about shooting females 
^xdth children — not unless it’s ab- 
Utely necessarv ” 


“When is necessary?” I said, bit- 
ter myself now, and still shaking. 

“Oh,” Harry answered, “I 
thought I’d give her another foot or 
so ” 

“The Memsaab is absolutelv 
right,” I said “She is surrounded 
by idiots and fools ” 

But It sounded very fine to be 
called Bwana Two Lions by Old 
Katunga, the trophy skinner, that 
night I remember how the fire 
looked that night and the flicker of 
the smaller fires on the black faces 
of the bo\s as the\ sat round roast- 
ing their bits of me.it For this was 
a fine <ityihu, this last lion that I 
shall ever shoot. 

iRtvin 1 was beginning to fall 
into the African way of thinking 
that if vou properly respect what 
vou arc after, and slnnit it cleanly 
and on the animal’s terrain, if you 
imprison in vour mind all the won 
dcr of the da\, from sky to smell 
to bree/e to flowers — then you have 
not merely killed .in animal You 
have lent immortality to a beast 
because \ou loved him and wanted 
him for cvei so that you could al 
wavs recapture the day 

Harrv, Virginia and I talked 
about this often as we gazed into 
the flickering camp-fire at the end 
of the day. 

“You know,” Hairy said, “I am 
not a particularly religious man, 
but there’s an awful lot of God 
loose round here The brilliant 
birds, the sounds of intense hfc, the 





/2f 


ivj 




W 


of peace and good will. But 
thing sticks out m my mind . a 
written by that old elephant 
""intnter Karamojo Bell about the 
^small-gleaming camp-fires’ at the 
^end of a hard day’s hunt That is 
'tibe Africa I love — the small-gleam- 
ing camp-fires at the end of a long 
day’s hunt.” 

*‘Son,” I said, ”)ou are a senti- 
mentalist. And I forgive you be- 
cause i am a small-gleaming camp- 
fire man myself ” 



The nights u/ere the best. It was 
always dark when we got back to 
tamp after a day of hunting, tired 
atnd ravenous. A hot bath washed 
,the alkali dust, ironed the kinks 
pi0t trf knotted muscles and soothed 
t:setse bites on wrists and ankles. 


Then after dinner, in the last hour 
of the waking night, we would sit 
in camp chairs by the fire, smoking 
lazilv and listening to the concert. 
All the sounds were fine, but the 
hyena symphony was the finest Not 
even a hyena knows how many keys 
and registers and vibratos he owns 

One night, as we watched a low 
swung sickle moon over the swamp, 
two dozen pairs of eyes came to 
within shoe-throwing distance of the 
fire The symphony was now operat- 
ing at close hand One big hyena 
sauntered over to the corner of the 
fire and sat there insolentlv, no more 
than 15 feet away He bared his big 
teeth and looked us straight in the 
eve 

“Bloody cheek,” Harrv safd 
“Early this morning one of the 
blighters was sitting in the entrance 
of my tent, looking at me and lick- 
ing his stupid chops Bite off a piece 
of your face, next thing you know 
I don’t like to shoot hyenas, but once 
in a while you have to They even- 
tually get arrogant enough to be 
dangerous I’ve known them to 
come into a native hut and make 
off with a child Awful beast, and 
pathetic, too ” 

We sat a long time in the moon- 
light while Harry expounded on the 
animal 

The hyena — fist — is a ridiculous 
beast who could be called a dirty 
joke on the entire animal kingdom 
He is so low on the totem pole of 
life that even the scragglicst abori- 
gine can lose his own misery when 


he sees one. Ftst has a dog’s face 
and a lion’s ears and the burly body 
of a bear. His hindquarters are per- 
manently crippled so that his run- 
ning motion IS a slope-spined, 
humping shuffle He has the most 
powerful jaws, possibly, of any 
carnivore, but is so slow and so un- 
gainly that the living meat which 
fisi craves easily outruns him So the 
hyena is forced to live off the car- 
rion of other animals’ kills — forced 
to kill the sick and the crippled and 
the very voung 

You will despise fist as you sec him 
on the outskirts of a game herd, 
waiting for a sick or lame animal to 
lag behind But in a peculiar fashion 
this unwieldy, unhappy ghoul is 
sfleh a vital part of African life that 
you would miss him greatly if he 
disappeared. For one thing, he is the 
headman in the sanitation corps Be- 
tween the hyena, the vulture, the 
marabou stork and the ants, the 
great rolling plains of Africa seldom 
smell of carrion , today’s kill is clcan- 
bk ached bone by tomorrow And 
without the hyenas’ constant attend- 
ance at camp, with their indescrib- 
able voice-range of whoops and 
screams and growls and bone-chill- 
ing insane giggle — the heeheehec- 
hee of a madwoman — Africa would 
never pack the nocturnal wallop 
that makes night noises and flicker- 
ing camp-fire so wonderful. 

We sat quietly for one last ciga- 
rette, watching the fire bank down 
into grey ash over red coals When I 
went to bed and crawled under the 


mosquito netting I couldn’t him 
thinking, before sleep crept 
me, that the net constituted no 
obstacle to anything that was cve^ 
reasonably hungry. | 

yERYBoi)^ I had met in the pasi^f 
six months had a leopard story Ho\y-| 
they move so fast that you can’t 
them go How vou get only 
shot and, whoosh, the leopard ialj 
gone How It IS always nearly night« 
when they come to the kill, and hoW 
a leopard never growls, betraying ' 
his presence, but comes like a streak*^ 
from SIX feet away, drops quietly on ’ 
\our neck from a tree How the 
leopard’s fangs and claws are always 
septic because c;t his habit of feeding 
on carrion How a great many pro- 
fessionals rate him over the elephant 
and buffalo as murderous game, bc^ 
cause he kills for fun A big leopard 
weighs only 150 pounds or so, but I 
had seen a 200-pound zebra foal ‘ 
wedged into a tree crotch 30 feet 
above ground by a leopard, giving 
\ou some idea of the fantastic 
strength stored under that lovely, 
spotted, golden hide 

“A really peculiar beast,” Harry 
said “They are supposed to be 
among the shiest, spookiest animals 
alive, vet sometimes they’ll walk 
thiough vour dining-room and spit 
in your eye And wait until you 
have seen a leopard in a tree It’s a 
sight unlike any other in the world.” 

In the fork of a tree, 500 yards, 
from camp, we had tied the car-^ 
casses of a Grant’s gazelle and aj. 







^TOtt^og. Now liie breeze carried 
to us a dreadful aroma. 
*‘Oho,” said Harry, “the bait has 
3ut just about the right stage of rot 
♦o smell better than Camembert to 
"our friend the pussycat Let*s see if 
;:rif>nc comes by this afternoon.” 


spotted neck, turned his big head ar- 
rogantly and slowly, and he seemed 
to be staring straight into my soul 
with the coldest eyes I have ever 
seen. I centred the sight between 
those eves, and then suddenly — the 
leopard moved Onlv you could not 


At four o’clock the Land Rover see him move Where there had 


Sjdropped us off at the blind, a scmi- been leopard there was only tree 
' circle of thorn and leaves with its There was not even a flash or a blur 


' camouflaged front facing the tree 
' Before we left camp Harry had said* 
“If you have to cough, please cough 
now. If you have to sneeze or scratch 
or anything else, do it now. because 
for the next three hours you will sit 
motionless in that blind, moving no 
muscle and thinking as quietly as 
possible. Leopards are extremely 
allergic to noise.” 

We sat Insects came Small am- 


when he disappeared. 

He appeared again on a higher 
slanting branch to the left of the 
kill Gold and black against the 
green-black foliage, he stood at full 
pride on that branch, erect and pro- 
filing like a battle horse on an an- 
cient tapestry. The tip of my fore- 
sight went to his shoulder, and a 
little inside voice said, You get only 
one shot at a 


mals came. But no leopards Five 
o'clock came, then six No leopard 
It grew so dark that you couldn’t 
s see the kill in the tree except through 
the nflescope Even then it was an 
indistinct blur. 

My watch said 12 minutes to 
seven when I felt Harry’s hand on 
my arm. Down the river to the left 
• the baboons had gone mad The up- 
Itoar lasted only a second, «ind then 
a cold and absolute calm settled 


I ne\er heard the rifle fire. All I 
heard was the bullet whunk, and 
the leopard hit the ground like a 
sack of wet cement. 

We went after him cautiously and 
found him sleeping quietly where 
he had fallen He was never going 
to move This wide-eyed, wonderful 
golden cat — eight feet something 
and 150 pounds of big tom leopard 
--was mine now He looked even 
more beautiful in death than he had 


' about us. No bird. No monke) , No 
nothing. 

I glued my eyes on the tree 
"^Thcrc was a noise like the rasp of 
khaki on brush, and where there 
^'Blibeen nothing but an empty tree 
there was now nothing but 
He stretched his lovely 


in the tree No rumpled look, eyes 
clear 

Said Harry “The leopard — he s 
the most beautiful trophy in Africa ” 

n HAD a phenomenal run of 
luck Besides the leopard, the water- 
buck and the lions we had taken 


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E^r buffalo, two exceptionally fine screaming waterfowl rose from 
Etepala, magnificent Grant’s and Manyara’s oozy edge. A flock of 
rhdmson’s gazelles and a damned flamingos went dripping over the 
good eland I would have been con- lake in an indescribable, improbable 
tent to stay at Campi Abahati all pink cloud Up on the sides of the 
mmmer Rut time was spinning hills there was a crashing in the bush 
out, so we headed for Lake Man- and a small herd of elephant squeal- 
yara and the rhino country “You’ll cd in displeasure 
like Manyara,” Harry said “It’s “Bloody reception committee,” 
real film jungle Tropical, big trees, Selby grumbled “They’ll spook 
bananas — the steamv-hot kind of every rhino round here.” 

Africa And the shores of the lake But then he stopped the car and 
ire stiff with rhino ” pointed at a shapeless lump i,ooo 

It was a long and unpleasant, hot yards away It looked to me like a 
ind tiresome two d«i\s’ journey un- big grev anthill 
til we reached the camp site It was *"Faro (rhino),” he said as he 
m a stream called Mto-Wa Mbu, picked up the binoculais “A cow 
:hc River of Mosquitoes, in a scmi- with a three-quarter-grown calf, just 
rlcaring topped over In wild figs, [last that copse of trees Horn’s no 
laobabs, towering acacias, all thickly good — it looks like a banana — but 
ivoven with lianas At Mto-Wa* let’s have a bit of fun so the Mem- 


Mbu I took a graduate degree in 
nsects The tsetse flies there take a 
irm grip wuth their feet and bore 
:hroiigh three thicknesses of canvas 
\1I the mosquitoes are four-motored, 
ind their whine is more drill-press 
han insect. I was so bitten up that 
:he insects had to begin biting on 
sites 

The morning after our arrival 
ivc drove through the butrerfl)- 
:lo^ged, creeper-twisted jungle to 
ivards the lake itself As we came 
)Ut along the shore a dozen ostriches 
broke out of the bush and ran fool- 
ishly ahead of us, slapping along 
knee deep in the lake on their big 
splay feet. A small herd of snorting, 
^pging wildebeest and 50 or more 
wim joined our escort. Clouds of 


saab can take some pictures Wind's 
riglit for us, and these blighters can 
scaiccly sec, )ou know, so we can 
get up close enough to take their 
pulse ” 

As we approached in the car, the 
rhino cow raised her head wonder- 
ingl)' The big stupid face swung 
back and forth, testing the wind 
Her small eyes blinked weakly She 
walked slowly towards us, still 
questing with her nostrils 

Perhaps your breath does not be- 
gin to huiry in your chest when you 
come up for the first time on three 
tons of antediluvian armour plating, 
but mine did Virginia looked 
a little pinched in the face, and she 
was muttering 

“Lead on, warriors, and don t 



: HOm OF THE HUmm 


mind me,” she said. “I don’t mind 
dying of acute rhino horn. Let’s 
seek some thrills, tomboys.” 

The lady rhino with the large 
child was obviously m a surly mood. 
She got one clear look at the car 
and charged Baby (about two and 
a half tons of Baby) took us on a 
quartering shot. Harry hit the ac- 
celerator and we passed between 
' them Cow stopped Baby stopped. 

We turned Now Harry used the 
Land Rover much as a bullfighter 
uses his mideta, to take the beast 
‘ past him in quick swerves The only 
difference was that we were all in 
the muleta The old cow wouldn’t 
quit She came down on us in a 
fury, with Junior logging knots 
alongside her Every time her stub- 
b\ horn dropped for the hook at 
the rear end of the Land Rover, 
Selby would spin right or left or put 
on a burst of speed and leave the 
old lady with her forelegs sprad- 
dled and her dignity in a frightful 
state of frazzle She made one last 
desperate, vengeful pass, missed us 
by six feet, and went grumbling off 
into the bush at full gallop, with 
Junior on her tail 

I had been bracing Virginia 
against the wind screen while she 
sighted the whirring film camera 
When the rhinos chuffed off I let 
her slip back on to the cushion. Her 
face was pale, and you might have 
scraped her eyes off with a spoon. 

“Get some good pictures?” Harry 
asked. 

“If you mean close ones, I did,” 


she said “That old stut tiad lil^ 
snout right in the spare tyre a coujp|| 
of times.” Then a pause, Thdfty 
“Oh, my Lord 

She pointed the camera at me* 
The lens was still packed with the 
tissue paper she used to keep it from 
getting dust- smeared. 

“Great,” I said. “I wonder you 
bother to bring the camera along.” 

“It’s just that 1 am not used to 
being charged by rhinos every day,” 
Virginia said, with that watch-out- 
I-a m-abou t- to-be-a - woman - and - cry 
expression 

QJO E HUNTED rhino hard for the 
next two weeks We saw in that 
time some 28 rhino, and stalked 
them all, but fired no shot. Almost 
all seemed to be cows with calves or 
immature bulls Harry was the kind 
of man who would rather have his 
client not shoot at all man shoot 
something unworthy of his reputa- 
tion 

I was getting to know quite a bit 
about my young friend by this time. 
Though he lives by procuring things 
for other people to shoot, he hates 
using a gun more than any other 
man I ever met What he likes is to 
watch animals and learn more about 
them He can see animals with the 
naked eye at about four miles and 
judge their horns accurately before 
the visitor can tell what species he 
IS looking at. 

I learned that there are somewhat 
less than 30 practising top profes- 
sional hunters in British East Africa 



They pdbrm backbreaking 
work and face daily danger for less 
pay than a good waiter draws in 
I^cw York. They forswear matri- 
mony, generally, because no wife 
lasts long when the old man is off 
twisting the tails of leopards for 
nine months of the year They save 
only a little money, for the upkeep 
on their hunting cars eats up most 
of their income, and they blow the 
rest in Nairobi between safaris or in 
the rainy season 

These pros are a long wav from 
the fictional idea of the white hunter 
as a man nine feet tall who drinks 
petrol cocktails neat, shoots lions 
with pistols and wrestles with snakes 
for fun Donald Ker is a small, thin, 
mild-secming man in his 40s who 
put himself through school shooting 
elephants for ivory when he was an 
eight-stone stripling His partner, 
Syd Downey, looks like an ordinary 
businessman, is rising 50, and is still 
rated one of the best in the business 
The retired doyen of the bunch, 
Philip Percival, with whom Harry 
5 cr\cd his apprenticeship, is a plump 
old gentleman with stubby legs who 
looks about as fierce as Colonel 
Blimp. 

Yet all these men have rnade a 
business of mingling dailv with 
lions, leopards and — the most dan- 
gerous trio — buffalo, elephants and 
rhino. They have managed to stay 
ilivife, although nearly all have horn 
wounds and claw scars. They have a 
tremendous respect for dangerous 
lUtmals. When they arc hurt, 99 


rimes out of 100 it is because they 
arc trying to protect a client who 
has just shown arrant cowardice or 
complete stupidity. Yet no client is 
ever publicly branded a coward or 
tagged as a kill-crazy meat hog. 
No lady ever misses her lion — not 
for the record, anyway. 

The professional hunter on safari 
IS responsible for the safety of 
whole shebang — you, himself and 
the black boys He supervises the 
camp, a tinv portable city He is the 
guide over trackless wastes, the ex- 
pert on finding game and seeing- 
that his dude is in the best possible 
position to shoot it He combines 
the duties of a sea captain, body- 
guard, tourist guide, interpreter, 
social companion, mechanic and 
handy-man 

If you wound an animal, it is the 
hunter's responsibility to go into the 
bush and finish it off, out of both 
humanitarianism and caution, since 
a wounded lion or buffalo is bound 
to kill the first unlucky local who 
(rosscs his path The hunter stands 
at your side to support you with 
dangerous game “I don't care a 
damn about these people who can 
split cl pea at 300 yards,” old Phd 
Pcrcisal once remarked. “What I 
want to know about a man is how 
gocxl he IS on a charging buffalo at 
six feet.” 

What do the professional hunters 
get out of It all ? I believe I know. 
They have such a genuine love of 
outdoors and of creatures, and such 
a hatred for the contrived living of 






\ ihc African vast- 
can thc^ fulfil they* need of 
ijl^plicity. My friend Selby, hope- 
■ lefisly lost in so small a town as 
^ t^airobi, is Moses leading his flock 
, when all he can see is horizons and 
a lion or two The complete love and 
' trust of his blacks are testament to 
this. He is happy in the dawn and 
in the small-gleaming fires of the 
camp, and secure in his knowledge 
of his clement. 


^We SPENT some time in the 
Iringa area, high on the high plateau 
of Tanganyika, hunting the elusive 
giant kudu, but without success 
Then we came back to the plains by 
Kiteti for one more try at rhino 
And there were no rhino But one 
day, on the steep side of a hill two 
miles away, we saw a sprinkling of 
what looked at that distance like 
tiny black worms 
Adam, the second gunbearer, 
pointed and said, *'Mbogo ” Buffalo 
I could feel my stomach start to 
knot. From seeing four or five buf- 
falo stampedes I had acquired a 
bitter fear of the big, rope-muscled 
wild ox with horns like steel girders 
The beast is big and ugly, vindic- 
tive, cruel and mean He l<x)ks like 
he hates you personally. He looks 
like you owe him money. He looks 
like he is hunting you 
Harry watched the buffalo through 
the glasses. There were about 200 of 
them. “There’s a good bull in that 
herd,” he said. “I think we’d better 
and collect him.” 



{ 


We started a two-mile stalk It 
was walking when you could and 
crawling when you couldn’t, and 
slipping on the loose stones and 
fighting through the wait-a-bit 
thorn And finally it was wiggling 
along on your belly, pushing the big 
gun ahead of you, sweat cascading 
into your eyes, your hands full of 
thorns, your heart in your throat 
And then the final, special Selby 
technique of leaping to your feet 
and dashing with a whoop directly 
at the bull you wanted, depending 
on that 30-second bewilderment to 
hold the buffalo stiff until you shot 
You hoped you hit the bull good so 
you wouldn’t have to follow him 
into that thick bush he was certain 
to head for — to wait for you. 

We were in the herd now, creep- 
ing on our bellies, the buffalo graz- 
ing unconcernedly all round us. It 
is a difficult sensation to describe, to 
be surrounded by 200 animals 
weighing 1,800 to 2,500 pounds 


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animals as&sty and capricious 
of temper as stud fighting*bulls, cap< 
able or killing you just as dead in 
an accidental stampede as they 
would m a purposeful charge 
A buffalo close up is not hand- 
some. His body is bulky, short- 
legged and too long for symmetry 
He smells of mud and of dung His 
horns are massive enough to bust 
everything up inside you if he ever 
hits you a slight swipe with the flat, 
sharp enough to put a hole in you 
big enough to hide a fence post and 
dirty enough to infect an army He 
has cloven hoofs, and he delights to 
dance on your carcass until there is 
nothing much left of it Even his 
tongue IS a weapon, it is as lough 
and harsh as a wood rasp If you 
climb a tree mbogo will crane his 
neck and lick the meat off you as fai 
as he can reach, his tongue erodes 
your flesh as easily as a child licks 
the point off an ice cream cornet 
I knew that you can change the 
mind of an advancing elephant or 
rhino by shooting him in the face 
But TTibogo, wounded, is generally 
rated as the toughest of all the Afri- 
can furniture because he will soak 
up lead and keep coming You have 
to kill him to discourage him 
In the midst of my musings an 
old cow with an evil expression — a 
cow I had not seen — looked right 
over the bush I was hiding behind 
and said, “Garrumph 
I stood up Just then the herd bull 
lurched to his feet. I walloped him 
Hc^ent down, then got upt-^again. 


I squeezed the trigger agam and the 
gun was jammed. Then I heard ^ 
Harry shoot. The bull went over,^' 
but he got up and took off. All the^ 
buffalo took off. They streamed ^ 
past us like runaway freight cars, 
snorting, flirting froth, walling their 
eyes But they went past. 

“We killed him all right,'’ Selby 
said “But let’s have a cigarette and 
give him a chance to get slii^Ttl^ 
sick before we go after him ” \ 

When a dangerous animal i<|- 
wounded, the professional generally^ 
sends the client back to the car whir 


he goes into the thick bush and 
earns his pay by finishing off the 
angry beast If the client is a very 
good and deserving client, the 
hunter mav ask him politely if*he’d 
like to go along and share the fu.i 

“Well,” Harry said, as if there 
was no question about it, “let’s go 
and pull him out bv the tail ” 

This was the accolade 

We checked the loads on the rifles 
and moved into the bush, Adam 
and Kidogo spooring ahead of us, 
following the bright gouts of heart 
blood There were lots of places in 
the bush for the buffalo to be — 
patches of tangle where any sensible 
buffalo would stop and wait. But 
this was a peculiar buffalo; he 
travelled, and never stopped to sulk^ 
and build up his hatred into a 
proper fever 

Nevertheless, I found out just 
how far you can carry fear as I 
poked my way along, spreading the 
underbrush ahead or me with a gun 



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barrel white die tw6 black innocents 
, worked ahead, trusting me to face 
die issue if a bull buffalo exploded 
out of the bush at less than 20 yards. 
I found out at what point just 
ordinary fear is overcome by the 
feajr of fear, and where it changes 
into cold determination. 

We tracked this bull for three 
hours, searching each c lump of grass 
and blob of trees for a ton and a bit 
of vindictive force and evil plotting 
For three hours I was nerve-edged 
to a sort of super-perception, where 
every sound, every rustic meant the 
charge of an angry buffalo 
We found him dead 
I hated him for not being alive, 
for not charging, for not making 
me prove out loud what I had al- 
ready proved inside me He had 
taken my bullet and Harry’s through 
the lower heart and vet had gone 
three miles in three hours 

HE LAST D\Ys at Kitcti wcrc a 
mixture of things I got a fine orw 
and a beautiful cheetah (an animal 
that’s about half dog, half cat, and 
is said to run 75 miles an hour when 
in a hurry) Then as the bo\s were 
breaking up camp on the final day 1 
said to Harry, “Let’s go look round 
for a couple of hours. I don’t want 
to say good-b)e yet ” 

“You really ought to shoot a 
zebra or so,’’ Harry said “You can 
“take the hides to your friends And 
Ac boys can use a little fresh meat 
for the trip home.’’ 

We rode over the hills for the last 


time, looking at all the landmarks 
we now knew so well — the cobbled 
hills here, the long blue slopes there, 
the lonely village of musky anthills, 
the green strip of lush grass with the 
giraffes standing solemn and ludi- 
crous nearbv, the buzzards wheel- 
ing, the fleets of ostrich running 
like trolling horses This was what 
I wanted to remember, more than 
what I’d shot 

vSucldcnIv ILirrv pointed “Zebra 
Inhere was <i big stallion loping 
along at the end of his herd I 
scrambled out of the car and firec* 
once He lurched and broke into a 
furious gallop I knew that, shot 
thiough the hcait,he’d lun ^ooyards 
and be dead when wc got to him 
He ran the [uesciilicd distnnce 
and folded as if somebody had 
skulled him with a hammer Wc 
drove up and Adam, the devout 
Mohammedan gunliearer, jumped 
out with his knife to sanctify him 
for eating in the Moslem wav. Adam 
cut the zebra’s throat 
Throat cut, hc.irt shot, this zebra 
was dead and sanetificd and ready 
to be skinned liut somebody foigot 
to tell him he was dead He got up 
and threw Adam 20 feet He reared 
on his hind legs, and charged Sclbv 
and me Harry was leaning against 
the open door of the Land Rover. I 
was leaning against the mud-guard 
He was awful to see — bloody, 
fierce, making a stallion’s ang7 
fighting squeal with his mouth dis 
tended and those huge yellow teeth 
that can snap off an arm bared in an 




. » WUKZV Tim niMNT£R 


equine snarl. He was Railing the air 
with razor forefeet, each capable of 
splitting your skull right down to 
your Adam’s apple. And he had 
Selby wedged against the car door 
and was biting at his face and strik- 
ing at him with his hoofs 
I ran round the front of the car 
and dived through the back seat, 
scooping up a rifle I stuck the bar- 
yd of the gun into the zebra’s mouth 
and pulled the trigger This time he 
was really dead. He fell foiward on 
top of Selby, pushing him under 
the wheel of the car Harry sat 
there, looking ruffled and hurt-feel- 
inged, his lap full of zebra 
“Somebody get this creature off 
me,’’ he roared with hurt dignity. 

And then we began to laugh The 
boys hurled themselves on to the 
ground and screamed with laughter 
I began to hiccup with uncontrol- 
lable mirth Finally Harry, still with 
a l^pful of zebra, began to laugh too 
“Fancy,” he said at last, tears of 
laughter streaming down his face 
“Fancy the flap in 
the Queen s Bar 
in Nairobi if word 
spread that old Selby, 
after all these years, 
had been done in by 
a zebra. My family ’d v ^ 

never live it down. 

It’s like being beaten ^*1^ 

to death by a dove. 

“But suddenly you 
think,” he went on, 

“you’re just as dead 


if a zebra bites you as if 
elephant steps on you. Anydimp 
they’ve got here can kill you, frorti'> 
a snake to a thorn to a zebra. 
That’s why this job is so inter^.' 
esting. It’s the unexpected does 
you in.” 

iTH camp-breaking completed, 
wc headed for Arusha, where we 
registered the trophies with the 
Game Department As the car 
pressed on in the dust towards 
Nairobi, nobody talked much. Once 
three giraffes — which Virginia loved 
— walked up cuiiously to watch us. 

I looked at Virginia and she was 
crying quietly Now all the excite- 
ment and the thrill of danger were 
finished Now it would be back to 
New York and civilized complica- 
tions again 

I hated to get back to Nairobi, to 
the plane trip home. There was part 
of me, of us, back there on a hill in 
Tanganyika, in a swamp in Tan- 
ganyika, in a tent and on a river 
and by a mountain 
V in Tanganyika. 

There was a part of 
me that would stay 
n out there until I came 
back to ransom it. It 
would never live in a 
city again, that part 
of me, nor would I 
ever be content to be 

no small - gleaming 
camp'Hres m a city. 



hFl.IT 


lUb one ihsecticlde is equally deadly 
all insects. For instance, Insecticide 
^A’ may kill all the flies it reaches, but 
only kill some of the cockroaches, 
knd none of the mosquitoes. 



On the other hand, Insecticide 
may kill all the cockroaches, some 



In fact, the only sure way is to combine 
insecticides, as Flit does. Flit has six 
deadly ingredients, carefully balanced 
for maximum killing effect it is this 
combined action that makes Flit more 
powerful than any other insecticide 
you can buy. • 

That’s why 



"Continued from tnstde' front coi>er) 


They discuss, very clearly and intor- 
i’tally, a big range of ordinary people’s 
privities, and go on to break new ground 
5y showing how we differ individually 
'^om each other in the way we are 
j_tposed to souices of ideas. 

The City of Derby v^as chosen for our 
»arvey because jt almost ideally represents 
thriving British city which, though 
n(;dern and progressive, is yet rooted in 
England’s beginnings, and which has a 
'ifng history of growth and change. We 
eheve that, with this book, we are fully 
in The Reader’s Digest tradition of 
^ing with the future and looking always 
for the best. 

*The Cvmmunhation of Ideas —A Study of 
'Contemporary Influences on Urban htfcy^ by 
IhonfasCauter, B,Sc (Econ ), b i 9 , F S S\ 
ind /. S, Downham^ M A,, A LS , b\S S,, 
mil he published early this month at z^s. 
It mil be available in all good bookshops and 
also, of course, in the public libraries. 


The Life Guards, mth their magnificent black 
horses and scarlet tunics, are one of London's 
nost splendid sights Oor Covfr shows 
fhem being inipecfed at Knightsbridge Barracks 
before setting off to Whitehall for the ancient 
ceremony of changing the Qiteen's Life Guard, 
As part of the Household Cavalry y they share 
I this duty with the Koyal Horse Guards (The 
Uues) and are also responsible for providing 
^ Ikoyal escort on all State occasions. 

Ektachrome by Joe Bamell 


THE READER’S DIGEST 

VoL 64, No 386 JuNr. 1954 

The Reader's Digest Associmion Ltd 
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T G M Harman 

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